Once a Pirate
by Brahma Bear
Summary: Nearly a year after Kit Cloudkicker left Don Karnage and the air pirates, an archeological discovery of a golden city leads them both on an adventure for treasures untold.
1. Digging up the past

**Prologue**

**Once upon a time...**

One morning upon a restless airfield set on the outskirts of a busy town, the sun peered between two airplane hangars and shed light on a peculiar sight. There was a big pile of old newspapers hidden behind empty boxes and full trash bins, and stirring underneath those newspapers, a young boy, who turned on his shoulder to keep the sunlight out of his eyes.

Groggily, he begged the world to leave him alone for a few more minutes of shuteye, but the world ringing in his ears demanded otherwise; blaring horns from automobiles, the chatter from people around the airfield, a church bell striking ten, and most of all, a loud buzz of a several airplanes darting over the runway that made him jump from his makeshift covers as a slice of bread from a toaster. It sounded like a formation, and he heard a crowd cheering, then trumpets, drums, tubas playing in the distance.

A smile crept on his weary, dust-smeared face, with the type of anticipation a child might have when he unwrapped a present on his birthdays to see what pleasant surprise he would find.

The boy stretched and rubbed his eyes, and padded toward the front of the hangars. The sky was a flawless bright blue, and he saw many airplanes swing high and low over the town. The airfield was crowded, there balloons, flags, and bleachers set around the runway, where the five planes he heard just a moment before had touched down and parked with a number of other sparkly planes across the field, where an admiring public was allowed mingle about, touch, view and inspect the planes up close.

He did not recognize the barnstormers, though he was determined to address that issue as soon as possible. He did recognize their red stunt planes, however, and could immediately enlighten any inquisitive ear with several tidbits of information about them, such as how fast they could go, how far they could fly on a half tank of gas, and, to note, their shiny silver propellers were not factory originals.

For now, he shrank back to the shadows and yawned. He was yet so tired that he felt dizzy; even in the late morning, he felt as if he had only just closed his eyes to sleep moments before. A good night's rest was a precious luxury nearly impossible to afford when so many waking hours were spent running from street thugs and scavenging for food, and even when he could finally find a place to lay his head for the night, there was always that foreboding terror that the wrong person would stumble upon him there. The airfield was very quiet when he arrived late at night, stowed with cargo of an unsuspecting pilot's plane; that he had slept through half an air show blaring over his head gave him worry.

To think of it, he was not even clear which town he was in, exactly; it was vaguely familiar, but so were a hundred other places, and he had been far and wide. Some freelance pilots in the day would have at least recognized him as the orphaned bear cub who stowed away on plane after plane, appearing and disappearing over time in many towns and airfields across the western territories, but fewer ever learned his name, Kit.

He again stepped out in front of the hangar, wiping the last bit of sleep from his eyes. It was a cool spring morning, and the blue sweatshirt he wore-by now a bit out-grown and worn thin to its threads-did little to keep the sea breezes from giving him a chill, although the bright sunlight was like a warm blanket. He rubbed his hands and arms for a moment, taking a good look around to see where he wanted to go first. His heart screamed for the airplanes, though his stomach begged otherwise.

Out in the open, a stocky bulldog stood next to a pushcart full of hot dogs, tongs in hand, getting an early start on the hungry flock of visitors. Kit's mouth watered as he watched a man buy three of them, one for himself and two for his children. Eventually, the bulldog noticed him, and that he was practically salivating at his food. "Wanna hot dog, kid?"

Kit blinked. "Huh?"

The bulldog spoke slowly this time, as though to a foreigner. "Do. You. Want. A. Hot. Dog."

"Wha'-yeah, please," beamed Kit. "Thanks!"

The bulldog shook his head. "Well, why didn't ya say so. Best breakfast in town, ya know." He reached for a bun, but then stopped himself, taking a good look at the boy and his ragged attire. "Wait a minute," he said, "you got any money?"

Kit ducked his head, ashamed. "Uh… no. But maybe I could-"

"Aw kid, don't go wastin' my time," said the bulldog. "Now get lost, will ya? You're gonna go scarin' away my customers."

Kit shot him a dirty look and walked away, cursing quietly.

There was a pilot's diner nearby that he wandered to, but he went around the back, lest risk being thrown out if he had gone inside asking for a handout. He was painfully aware of how others took to his appearance… he was not the least bit comfortable with it. Sometimes it elicited sympathy, other times it invited danger, but most often, people just wanted him to go away.

Kit peered inside a trash bin with hopes of finding a few scraps to eat. He despised, wholeheartedly, having to resort to trash for a meal, but hunger had a way of overcoming dignity. Resignedly, he sifted through the contents... wadded paper bags, bottles… he found a chicken drumstick that did not look so bad; in fact, with the empty pang in his belly, it looked like sweet salvation.

Most of it fell apart in his fingers as he reached in and grabbed it. But when he brought it close to his nose, its stench was horrid; it made him jerk his head away. Worse yet, he suddenly noticed tiny, squirming critters that had already claimed his wood-be meal as their little fleshy nest.

He began to cough quite violently, and threw the chicken back into the trash, where he keeled over the bin and heaved like he was about to throw up. Then he pushed himself away from it, stumbling on his back onto the gravely dirt.

_'I can't do this anymore,'_ he told himself, choking down a foul bile taste in his throat between breaths. _'It's time to go to work...'_

Rising, and staggering a little in his step, he met once more with the hustle and bustle of the amassing crowd. There, he sat down alongside the front of the diner and rested against the wall, taking a moment for his stomach to quell, and to watch for the right person to pass by.

Through the crowd and beyond the airfield's chain-link fence, he saw trolleys, trucks, and automobiles jamming the street, while the sidewalks were cluttered with countless faces, people with money, homes and friends. He could not help but think, with more than a little envy, that it must have been nice to have had any of that. Occasionally he met a friendly pilot, but they came and went as freely as the wind they flew in. For him, going on two years as a lone vagrant who hitchhiked and stowed away near and broad in literally hundreds of planes, there was no place to plant his feet, but _flying_... to be able to spread his wings to the next new, promising horizon... as long as that was there for him, he still managed to smile every now and then.

"_Ouch!"_ he yelped, after someone stepped on his hand. "Hey! Watch who you're walkin' on!" The person did not hear him, or if he did, did not pay attention. Rarely anyone did.

A little girl holding her mother's hand passed by. She was about his age, and looked him curiously; he smiled at her, but then watched as her mother pulled her away. "Ew, get away from that, Brenda," she scolded.

Kit frowned, and hunched low with his knees to his chin. He would scold himself not to let such words bother him, but no matter how many times, it was still near impossible. It hurt. Even if he truly believed he was not worthless, it was tough when the world around him seemed convinced of it.

With a deep breath, he gathered himself and stood up, surveying the crowd. The only thing he wanted to think about for the moment was how he was going to eat. In a moment, above the chatter and noise of his surroundings, he heard someone whistling a happy tune, though it was like claws on a chalkboard to his ears. And, it was getting closer.

Kit watched as that man passed by, a tiger with a white shirt tucked into his trousers. As he merrily sauntered off, oblivious to the fact that he could not whistle the proper notes to 'She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain' to save his life, Kit caught a glimpse of his backside, specifically the distinctive contour of a wallet in his back pocket. Also conspicuous was a golden watch chain, glittering in the sunlight, dangling out from his side pocket.

"I almost hate to rain on his parade," Kit muttered, and stumbled forward after him. "Almost."

He cut through a sea of people, listening for the tiger's whistle as a tracking device. This was one of those times when being not very noticeable worked to his advantage. After he had the tiger back in sight, he kept his eyes steady on his soon-to-be spoils. He trailed him within a couple feet; he'd have to be quick about it, one hand ready for the wallet, the other ready for the pocket watch.

_'Easy now,' _he thought, his fingers anxious to grab._ 'Easy… and… __**now!'**_

"Hey-what?" The tiger stopped whistling and patted his pocket, finding it empty. Turning around and seeing a small bear cub running away from him, it was not very difficult to figure out what just happened. "Hey, somebody stop that kid! He's got my watch!" He then checked his back pocket. "_And_ my wallet! Stop that thief!"

Kit took a quick glance back. The tiger was in hot pursuit, and it seemed every single face in the crowd had their eyes on him, some actually looking as if they were ready to grab him, though most looked more confused than anything else. As he wove through the forest of legs, he could hear people shouting for the police.

Breaking away from the crowd, Kit ran out the airfield's gates and down the street, the tiger chasing and hollering after him vehemently. Just up ahead was that same street-vending bulldog, with his hot dog cart parked right in the middle of the sidewalk. The bulldog saw him coming, and the person chasing him, and he did not have to be a fortune teller to know neither boded well. "What'n-uh-oh. Hey you, kid, slow down!"

Kit _could_ have slowed down and went around, or…

_*CRASH*_

With no love lost, he rammed into the cart with full speed, toppling it over and spilling everything inside onto the cement. "My hot dogs!" the bulldog lamented, almost in tears. "Gaw-dangit, ya little rat! I'll tear ya to pieces!"

Kit took a tumble himself, and just barely got up in time before the bulldog was able get his hands on him.

The tiger tried to jump over the cart and continue after him, but tripped, went head over heels, and ended up with a face full of wieners and mustard. "_Aaaauughgh_!" he screamed. "Somebody_stop _thatkid!"

A police officer, a particularly chubby one (he was a hog, after all), stood at the street corner when he heard the ruckus, and saw Kit running in his direction. "Hey you!" he yelled, and blew a whistle. "Freeze!"

With his path blocked ahead, Kit slid to a hesitant stop and turned back, but the tiger _and_ the bulldog were coming after him. He had only one option, one that he did not like so well, but who had time to think of a better plan... he bolted into the busy street!

The driver of a large truck had barely a second to react... Kit only caught a glimpse of the wide fender and license plate speeding straight toward his nose before he threw himself face-down onto the pavement. A blaring horn, the screeching of braking tires, and a heavy _whoosh _suddenly flew over his head.

Then, from all around, more screeching, more horns blaring, and lots of quick crashing noises. A very brief silence ensued. Kit swallowed hard, nearly too afraid to open his eyes and see himself flatted, though he had not been as much as scratched.

Motorist began stepping out of their vehicles, yelling and swearing at one another. That was when Kit finally took a peek at the chaos. The truck had tailspinned to a halt, blocking the entire road. Cars and other trucks, which had swerved to avoid each other, jammed the street and parts of the sidewalk, literally fender-to-fender as far as anyone on that road could see. Despite it all, no one appeared to be hurt.

The truck driver, however, soon jumped out of his cab in a blazing panic. "Oh no! Oh no!"

He was met by the policeman, the bulldog, and the tiger. "Are you all right?" asked the policeman.

The driver grabbed the officer by his blue lapels, as if pleading for mercy. "I-I didn't mean to run him over, I swear! He came from out of _nowhere_! Ya gotta believe me!"

Amidst the commotion, Kit discreetly cut between vehicles and angry, shouting drivers-who seemed all but oblivious to his involvement-to the other side of the street, where he disappeared into a narrow alleyway.

He took a moment to catch his breath and look over his newly pilfered goods. The pocket watch was in great condition, shiny and without scratches on the face. He didn't know how much it was worth, but maybe he'd just keep it instead of pawning it, anyway.

After he shoved it in his sweatshirt pocket, he opened the wallet to see how much was inside. "Wow, ten bucks," he smiled. It certainly raised his spirits, as he began to think of all the tasty things he could afford for breakfast now.

He stashed the wallet with the watch casually walked out of the alley onto another street. It wasn't long before the smell of fresh-baked muffins caught his attention. "Mmm… gotta get me some of those."

He followed the scent to Amecci's Bakery, as the sign on the door said, where a mustachioed beagle, presumably Amecci himself, was on the sidewalk washing the store's window; as he scrubbed soapy water across the pane, he was humming to himself and wrapped enough in his own little world that he did not notice the young cub go inside.

_'No one else in here,'_ observed Kit, and then spotted the tray full of oven-warm blueberry muffins sitting on the counter. He picked one and stuffed it in his mouth, then dug the wallet out of his sweatshirt.

_'Wait a minute,'_ he thought, '_no one's looking…'_

Kit pocketed the wallet again. If he had the opportunity to get this meal for free, then he wasn't about to pass it up. He took three muffins and tucked them under the front of his sweatshirt. "Time to vam-uh-oh."

The beagle stood at the doorway, arms crossed. "Hey, whatchu think you doing, huh?"

"I… uh, I was just looking, that's all," replied Kit. His hands were folded calmly over the front of his shirt, but they were doing a terrible job of hiding the conspicuous lumps there.

"Just-a looking, huh? Then why you got-a blueberry on your face?"

While Kit hesitated for an explanation, one of the muffins fell out of his shirt. "I, uh... oops."

Ah-ha!" exclaimed the beagle, rasing a finger in the air. "You trying to steal from Amecci, eh?"

"No! I mean… I have money." Kit showed him the wallet and opened it up. "I don't want any trouble. I can pay for this, okay?"

"Ha! Money thatta you probably stole. Maybe this is amatta for de police!"

"Look, I… oh my gosh!" Kit yelled suddenly, pointing over the baker's shoulder. "That's the biggest cheese wheel I've ever seen!"

The beagle turned around, confused. "What? I don't see-a nothing-hey! Come-a back here you!" Before he knew it, Kit had slipped passed him, and was running down the sidewalk.

It was back to the alleyway for him. It was deserted, so at least there he could be alone and eat in peace. Kit wolfed down two of the muffins in minutes, and was just about to take the final bites out of the third when two German shepherds in police uniforms approached him from behind.

"Hold it right there, young man," one said.

Kit turned around and swallowed hard, backpedaling. "I… I didn't do anything! Honest!"

"Easy, kid," said the officer, "we just want to ask you some questions, that's all."

Kit found that hard to believe, considering that the other officer looked like he was getting ready to pounce on him. He suddenly lunged at the boy, but Kit dodged him, and the officer ended up tacking a trash can instead.

Kit chucked the last piece of muffin at the other policeman's face, hitting him right in the eye. "Eat muffin, flatfoot!"

"_Ow_!" the cop yelped.

While the stunned canine wiped blueberry crumbs from his eye, Kit started to run, but was snagged and tripped at the ankle by the other officer, who had his handcuffs out. "Not so fast," he grunted, and in a beat he was on top of the boy, wrangling Kit's slender arm until he got a wrist snapped inside a cuff, but was he surprised when at that instant Kit jerked the cuffs away and kicked him in the chin. It was just enough of a stun for Kit to spring out of his grasp, and he sprinted up the alley full speed with the locked cuff dangling over his wrist.

The officer looked incredulously at the sudden nothingness between his hands. "For cryin' out-some feisty little escape artist we got here, let's get him!"

The traffic disrupted earlier had not yet resumed, and drivers were still honking, still arguing. While the obese policeman tried futilely to soothe tempers and regain a smidgen of order back on the street, he checked down under the cars to see if he could find any trace of that boy, without luck. That is, until Kit leapt on the hood of one of the cars, then on top of the officer's head, capping his blue hat down over his eyes. One strong jump from there, and he was on the other side of the street, dashing for the airfield.

"What the-!" The policeman didn't know what hit him, and was even more confused when two of his colleagues accidentally slammed into him from behind as they tried to jump over the same car. "What are you guys _doing_?"

"We're after that _kid_!" they shouted together.

The two were soon gaining on him… Kit was just getting too winded to run so fast anymore. They thought they had the boy cornered for sure when he ran towards the airfield's fence, but much to their chagrin, he slid under a small hole at the bottom, and in no time was on the other side.

"We said _stop_!" cried the officers. One of the German shepherds tried sliding underneath the fence just the same way, headfirst, but made it only halfway through. "_I'm_ _stuck_!"

While his partner cursed and pulled on his legs to set him loose, the two watched helplessly as their culprit vanished behind a hangar.

Kit had bought himself some time, but he was sure they would come searching for him. He needed a place to hide. Up ahead, he saw a freshly stocked cargo plane that would do just fine. The back hatch was open, and the pilot didn't seem to be in sight…

He snuck inside the cargo hold and found among the inventory a chest with clothes folded inside. This he climbed inside of and shut the lid over his head. Just as he expected, a few moments later, he heard the police officers speaking, and one was inside the plane, routing around.

"Hey, you guys!" someone shouted. "Can't a guy go get a cup of coffee without people buggin' his plane? What are you coppers doing?"

"Sorry, sir. We're looking for a pickpocket… he ran in this direction. Small boy in a blue shirt!"

"Well I ain't seen no pickpocket, and I got cargo to run, if those fancy-pants fly boys ever get their flimsy birds out of the way. Now git, will ya?"

The good thing for Kit was that the officers left, agreeing that they would split up to cover more ground. The bad thing... there was a loud clunk above him, the pilot had laid something heavy over the top of the chest. Later when Kit was left alone to try to push the top open, he found he could not.

To his chagrin and sadness over missing the air show entirely, he lay in the chest for what seemed to be at least an hour, worrying about what he was going to if and when the gruff-sounding pilot found him at the other end of the delivery. Eventually the plane took off, and the pitch darkness and soothing hum of the plane's engines lulled him to sleep...

* * *

Much later that afternoon, the plane was far over the open sea. Bored, the pilot leaned back in his seat, steering the flight yoke with his knee and grumbling about how, for all the traveling he did, the scenery never seemed to change.

He thought he saw something peculiar zip by in the clouds out of the corner of his eye, but when he gave it a better look, the sky was as lonely as it had been.

He sank a little lower in his chair, mumbling to himself. Then, again, he was almost sure there was something just outside his plane, to the left. He was reluctant to even look this time, until he realized that the 'something' had engine noises... and was drawing closer. "Wait a min-_holy moley_!"

To his shock and horror, two CT-37's were flying right on his wing. The wolf skull insignia on their tails left no mistake about it: "Sky pirates!"

The two pirates in their cockpits grinned and waved at him, then one-a particularly ugly canine who looked more like a starved weasel with a big broken snout-set his flight goggles over his eyes and gave the pilot a foreboding 'thumbs down' signal, signaling the fate of his cargo-carrying plane.

With shaky hands, the pilot made a sharp right toward a bank of brewing thunderclouds. The two pirate planes followed him closely, occasionally firing an erratic burst of bullets past his side. But when he finally made into to the thick cloud covering, the pirates seemed to back off. "I... I think I lost 'em," he huffed.

The skies began to darken, but he kept his course. He would rather take a chance with a storm than let the pirates find him again. "They ain't _never _gonna find me in-huh? _Yikes_!"

When the clouds parted, an ominous shadow fell across his windshield... he had but a brief glimpse of a bulging purple hull and yellow eye, cold and lifeless... then all too suddenly, iron-clad jaws open wide and hungry like a great sky monster lunging at its prey.

The pilot had no chance to turn away... the Iron Vulture had swallowed whole yet another trophy.

It was a quick and quiet capture, using a large net to stop the plane inside the Iron Vulture's gullet. All the pilot could do was watch and tremble as pirates surrounded his plane, and took an axe to the rear hatch to break into the cargo hold.

"Knockety-knock, my cankerous catch," said Don Karnage, leading a cavalcade of buccaneers inside. "It is _I_, the plundering wonder…"

"D-don Karnage!" the pilot stammered.

Karnage shook his head. "Tisk tisk… you forgot to roll the 'r', yes-no? Naughty naughty! That is why _I_ do the introductions around here. Dumptruck, take this pestering pilot down to the brig and see to it that he is _thoroughly_ intimidated… and make him afraid, too."

As Dumptruck dragged the pilot off, Karnage took a look at the cargo, rubbing his hands with anticipation. "Well, well, what goodies have we today, hm?" The first thing Karnage happened to see was a large, heavy case of canned pinto beans placed on top of a chest, to which he promptly turned his nose at with a bit of a shudder. "You may remove this from my presence," he told Hal, snapping his fingers.

The other pirates began stripping the plane of its parts, inside and out, while Ratchet searched about the cargo, opening chests, crates, and looking into barrels, checking for anything of interest. "Uh, lessee… *_sniff_* paperweights, campin' gear, *_sniff_* fish bowls, a package from Thembria, *_sniff_* a sleepin' kid, some soda straws… _a kid_?"

"What are you meaning, a kid, you nincompirate?" Karnage looked inside the opened chest himself to see what one of his relatively-intelligent lackeys was talking about. His eyes widened to find a sleeping bear cub. "A kid!"

Kit suddenly awoke, and before he could remember where he was, saw Ratchet and Karnage peering down at him, and then, Ratchet reaching for him. Startled, he gasped and tried to knock his hand away, but the mechanic snatched him by the scruff of his neck and yanked him out.

"Ow!" yelped Kit, and he lashed out with every bit of instinct he learned on the street. "Hey! Lemme go, you sonofa-!"

Don Karnage recoiled, watching with pleasant surprise as this boy cussed, swung, and kicked furiously for his freedom, and how Ratchet was giving it his all just trying to restrain him.

"Hey!" shouted Ratchet. "Knock it off, ya little runt!"

"I said _let go _of me, ya mutt!" Kit swung his fist and connected with Ratchet's jaw, surprising the pirate, but not stunning him enough for him to release his grip. "Take _that_!"

"That's it!" snarled Ratchet. Finally overpowering him, he managed to pin his arms down and clamp his hand across the boy's mouth. "For cryin' out loud," he panted, then asked the Captain, "What'll we _do _with him?"

Kit stared at the captain, but behind his defiant glare, he was terrified. Karnage grinned and leaned toward him with his hands on his knees. "My my, what have we here?"

The young cub replied by biting down on Ratchet's hand as hard as he could. Ratchet howled and let go of him, and Kit ducked between Karnage's legs and burst out of the plane.

"Oh my gosh, where-?" Kit suddenly found himself amidst the largest airplane hangar he'd ever seen, surrounded by more attack planes than he could count offhand. But his awe was short-lived as dozens of scruffy-looking characters turned their attention towards him, dumbfounded and talking at once. Many had muskets, daggers, and axes in hand.

Ratchet stormed out of the cargo plane, furious. "C'mere, you!"

Kit bolted for the exit, the wide opening where the sunlight was flooding into the hangar. He thought he was home free, until he suddenly realized... this was no ordinary hangar. "_Wha_'?" He slid to an abrupt halt, just inches away from the edge of the Iron Vulture's prow, looking down to see clouds instead of ground.

He staggered backwards, but before he knew it Ratchet had swiped him by the ankles and held him upside down. "You ain't gettin' away with that, kid!"

"No!" As Kit struggled with him, the watch and wallet fell out of his sweatshirt. "Let _go _of me!"

"You bet I will," Ratchet said, holding him over the edge. "Happy landings!"

"Uno momento," said Karnage. He didn't give chase like Ratchet, but had watched the entire scene thoughtfully. It did not go unnoticed that the boy was half handcuffed, which piqued Karnage's curiosity considerably. "Let us not be too hasty. Ratchet, set the boy down."

"But boss!"

"Set him _down_," the captain ordered.

Kit grabbed Ratchet's shirt and swung again, this time below the belt. The pirate doubled over, dropping him on his head.

With the world spinning before his eyes, Kit dazedly scooted back away from the gathering crowd, his heart pounding like a sledgehammer. Suddenly he ran out of floor; he peered down as his vision un-blurred, staring down at rivers and grassy mountains from thousands of feet above.

Someone briefly tugged him by the arm away from the edge before he rolled off. "Careful, my boy," the person said. "That last step is a _dilly_, yes-no?"

Kit looked up at him, and at the others. He had no where to run. A horde of questions shouted in his mind all at once. Who _were _they? What did they want? Where _was _he?

Karnage picked up the wallet and watch and observed them. "Hm, interesting. Yours?" he asked.

Kit got to his feet, but just stared at him, like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

"Gato got your tongue, boy? I _asked _you a question!"

Kit swallowed a lump in his throat that felt bigger than the Spruce Moose. "Th-they're mine," he said, rather timidly.

The captain gasped sarcastically. "You don't say!" A couple of the others began to chuckle at the boy, and still others didn't have a clue as to what was going on.

Kit frowned, drawing some mettle in spite of their teasing. "Yeah, so give 'em back!" he snapped.

"We shall see," Karnage said, opening the wallet. He found a driver's lisence and snickered, particularly regarding the date of birth listed. "Ah, Mister Henry Crain, I presume? My, perhaps you _do_ look younger in person."

Kit hesitated. "Well, uh…"

Then Karnage looked the pocket watch over. '_Only brass,' _he thought. "And I suppose _this_ is yours too, you pickpocketing pip-squeak?"

"That's right, so hand it over!"

Karnage smiled, amused at the boy's spunk. "Fine, fine, take them."

As he handed them back to Kit, Ratchet showed his bloodied hand to Karnage and pleaded, "Capt'n, what about _this_? He _bit_ me!"

"Hee hee, so he did," laughed Karnage.

Kit spat strands of Ratchet's fur out of his mouth and wiped his lips. "Captain?" For a moment, his fears and concerns slipped away as he regarded the strangely-accented wolf and his curious attire. His blue coat, trimmed with red cuffs and brass buttons, was classy in its own right, but a century or so out of fashion. He had a cutlass at his left side, with a gold hilt shined to a fine polish. "What are you a captain of?"

"Why, look around you, boy," Karnage said, gesturing to the entire ship. "All you see!"

Kit's heart began to race again. It all fell into place with the countless stories he had heard from manyy pilots. The airship, the crew, the planes, the captain… "Oh my gosh... _air pirates_…"

"Correctemundo," Karnage said proudly.

"You're Don Karnage," Kit uttered.

"Yes yes, my reputation concedes me," Karnage said, flattered by the boy's apparent awe. "So tell me then, what _fantastic _stories have you heard about my wonderful self?"

"Well, um..."

"Yes, go on, don't be shy now."

Kit stared at him, mouth agape as he stammered for words that wouldn't get him hurt.

Karnage crossed his arms. "I am not hearing fantastic thi-ings..."

"Well, I… I heard you were a guy to keep away from," said Kit. For his own welfare, he did not want to say _exactly_ what he had heard about Don Karnage, particularly the choice names pilots refered to him as, although so far he had not seemed to be quite the monster people made him out to be. Still, there was nothing easing about that, standing on the brink of a five-thousand foot fall.

"Can we toss 'im now?" one pirate asked.

Karnage rubbed his chin as he thought about it. "Perhaps I could let the boy give me one good reason not to."

Pirates were then gathered with an amused interest, thinking whatever the kid was about to say, it ought to be worth a laugh. With so many strangers' eyes and ears all the sudden paying attention to his next word, leaping from the ship and taking the fall, if not for the inevitable sudden stop at the ground, was a tempting option. After a moment's thought, he puffed up and said, "You wanna end up hurt like your friend over there, just try it."

Guffaws bellowed about from the pirate crew (Ratchet being an exception, he snorted in disgust), the kid had not disappointed them. "Perhaps you would care to try again," said Don Karnage.

"I... uh... I could tell you a secret," said Kit; as his thoughts were scrambling for an escape, his eyes were darting around the hangar, at least what he could see between the pirates standing before him. "Something you don't know."

"Such as?" asked Karnage.

"Such as... I bet you don't know about the huge black spider crawling on your shirt!"

With that, Karnage blinked, and became a one-man whirlwind, swatting at his chest and shoulders as if he was trying to douse a fire on his coat. At his frantic command, the other pirates surrounded him to find the critter and get it off of him _now_... Dumptruck suddenly smacked him on the back, so hard that Karnage went head over heels to the floor.

"Der, no worries, I got it," exclaimed Dumptruck. While the captain sprawled on the ground wondering what hit him, Dumptruck plucked a piece of purple lint (freshly crushed flat) from Karnage's back and examined it. "Gee, dis is the _funniest _lookin' big black spidey I ever seen."

By the time Karnage stopped seeing double, he was furious, as a reward for Dumptruck's ready assistance, he lunged at the massif and throttled him. "You idiotic imbecele! I should have your-!" He paused, realizing the boy had set up a distraction, and sure enough, the Iron Vulture's prow was empty; the boy had disappeared. "What are you all looking at? _Find _that boy!"

And so the pirates scattered around the hangar, checking under the planes and behind crates, and after several minutes they had no luck. Karnage, fuming, looked inside one of their larger seaplanes, an vessel assembled from parts of many different planes. In his mind, it would have been the nearest most likely place to hide, but plane was empty. He took a moment, with his foot tapping, to think where else the boy could have gone, and he was just about to step out of the back of the plane when he heard a metallic rattling... like a handcuff chain.

Karnage went back inside the middle of the plane and listened... the rattling noise was coming from under his feet, where there was a hidden compartment. He opened the hatch, and surely enough, there was the boy, crouched down and looking up at him with a big 'uh-oh' on his face.

"How did _you _know about that space?" asked Karnage. "Get out of there!" But Kit was frozen in panic, and stayed where he was with his arms over his head. "Don't make me make you, boy," said Karnage. "And I asked you a question. Learn to answer."

Kit eventually understood that the wolf was not going to lay a finger on him, at least if he obeyed; he complied and climbed out of the compartment, though slow and shakily. "I just recognized the plane," he said. "Well, the fuselage, anyway. They were used in the Great War for smuggling."

Karnage looked him over from head to toe, scratching his chin. "You know something about planes, do you."

"Yeah... y-yes sir."

Mad Dog poked his head in the seaplane, with the others close by. "Boss?"

Karnage waved them all off. "It's fine, leave the boy alone, all of you." Then, back to Kit, he said, "Stowed away in a barrel. Where were you going?"

"Nowhere," replied Kit.

Karnage gave him a hard glare, a warning that he was in no mood for anything but the right answer.

"No, I mean it," said Kit, "I don't know where. I just had to hide." He raised his handcuffed wrist with a weak and nervous grin, hoping one of the most infamous criminals in the world might empathize with unfortunate encounters with from the law. Karnage sighed and gestured for Kit to keep the cuffs held out in front of him while he got on one knee and dug in his coat pocket.

"So, my boy, you have a name, yes?"

"Uh, yeah. It's Ki-" Kit hesitated, thinking of some of the handles he had heard about the pirate's used, and 'Kit' seemed a bit inappropriate for present company. "It's... _Cloudkicker_."

Karnage cocked his head at him. "Cloud… _kicker_?"

"Yeah, Kit Cloudkicker!"

"Is that so? Then tell me, Mister Cloudkicker, who taught you about planes?"

Kit shrugged and shook his head. "Myself, really... I've been in just about every single kind... flying's _everything _to me."

From his pocket Karnage had produced a lock pick, and in a jiff Kit's handcuffs were loosed and discarded.

"Thanks," exhaled Kit. He nearly felt dizzy, for the moment had taken him by large surprise that this pirate captain actually made him feel safe. Karnage had a bit of a smirk about him, and Kit sensed in the pirate's eyes an understanding that none had ever afforded him.

"You could use something to eat," said Karnage.

"You _mean _it?"

Karnaged nodded, and led Kit back into the hangar, where finally having a chance to do so, Kit marveled at all the planes parked around him. "Cripes, you guys have a lot of planes."

"You like what you see, eh?" Karnage asked.

"Those are CT-37's, aren't they?"

The captain was impressed. "Yes, yes they are."

"Man, I'd like to-" Kit almost forgot where he was for a moment, starting for the nearest planes like a moth drawn to a flame. "I mean, you think I could see some up close?"

"Go ahead," shrugged Karnage. As soon as he said it, he noticed how the boy's eyes lit up. It was a telltale sign; the kid was not fooling about how much he wanted to fly.

"Can I hop in one?" asked Kit.

"Knock your socks off, if you had any."

Excitedly, Kit approached the nearest plane, Karnage watching on. "Tell me, Mister Cloudkicker, you think you could fly one of these someday?"

"You _bet_ I could," Kit answered, without a second thought. Then he saw a red and black plane, one with a shiny finish to it. "I bet that's yours, isn't it?" He jogged over to Karnage tri-wing attack plane, all smiles.

"Of course! After all, it _is_ the best looking, yes-no?"

"Yeah," Kit agreed.

"It is my own perilously pirating-"

"Custom CT-39 tri-wing," Kit cited. "It's one of a kind!"

Once again, Karnage was impressed. He was merely going to say 'plane.' "Perhaps you _would_ make a fine pilot."

Kit brightened. It sounded like the chance he always wanted. "You really think?"

Then Gibber came along and whispered in Karnage's ear. "Yes, I _know_ he is too young," the captain said. Kit's face fell... he _hated_ to hear that. "Ehm, how old _are_ you, anyway?" asked Karnage.

Kit leaned back against Karnage's plane and crossed his arms cockily. "Sixteen."

"_Sixteen_?" questioned the pirates, in unison.

"Ha!" laughed Ratchet. "The brat doesn't even look old enough to ride a tricycle, if ya ask me."

Karnage knew he was lied to, but in this instance it made him like this boy all the more. "Forget it. You said something about being hungry, yes-no?"

"If it's not too much trouble, I wouldn't mind" said Kit coyly. He went back to Karnage's side, for amidst the gruff figures and shifty glances of the crew, Karnage, in his sight, was a beacon of awesomeness.

"The follow me, I suppose," said Karnage, not just a little flattered by the boys admiration. As he led Kit away, he did not quite like so much the attention from the gawking crew. "As for the rest of you, go do... something... _piratey_!"

For Kit, thus was the beginning of many adventures under the wolfish Jolly Roger. It could be said it was the fate of destiny, but pirates and destiny never got along well, for theirs was like a dandelion seed scattered in the wind: once in motion, quite unforeseeable where it might go.

They wouldn't have it any other way.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

**Digging up the past**

Far in the South Pacific, the ocean was calm where the Iron Vulture drifted, under a moonless but bright, starry night that turned silver the black plumes of smoke rising from the airship's dorsal rotors. The serenity was a sharp contrast to just hours before, where hovering over the port city of Alpacito, in the midst of a gruesome thunderstorm, the pirates' vessel became a viable lightning rod and lost half its engines.

The heist was a spur-of-the-moment decision captain Don Karnage had conceived and ordered that very morning. Few pirates knew exactly what their leader coveted from the infamously impoverished and overcrowded city, but what they did know was passed down from pirate to pirate in unmistakable code: 'treasure.' Around midnight, the Iron Vulture descended over the city from storm clouds that had made its detection impossible, and a dozen pirates slid down from rope ladders onto the roof of the city's natural history no more resistance inside the building than a handful of security guards, the raid was over almost as quickly as it began, but the airship rocked in the wind, trembled in the lightning, and was struck by two rounds of artillery shells from the local militia before Karnage and his party climbed back up the ladders, bearing against an onslaught of wind and sleet. To the captain, despite bringing only one item back onboard, the heist had been well worth the trouble.

In the captain's quarters, Kit Cloudkicker held the newly stolen item in his lap; it looked quite ancient, a piece of history in his very own paws. It was a chest-like object, about one foot in size, rectangular shaped but flat like a thick book. Layers of barnacles, moss, and black ocean grime had been very recently scraped from it; it still smelled mustily of the sea.

Its corners were made of darkly-tarnished bronze, while its sides were ashen granite, chisled on each face with large runes. The top was fastened on by eight bronze latches, each with disk-shaped knob; it was different from the other sides in that it was made out of a scaly black leather, hard as stone, and at its center was a small socket cut in such a way that it appeared to fit a gem; it was surrounded by a delicate carving, faded and worn, of two wings reaching around into a circle. They were not feathered and bird-like; they appeared to Kit to be something more of bat wings, or something he had seen from a picture book about dinosaurs. The artifact was a bit heavy, but for mostly stone still light enough that he could discern it was hollow inside, perhaps fragile enough that it would probably break into pieces if he dropped it.

_'Maybe it's a caveman's jewelry box,'_ he thought. In truth, he had no idea _what_ it was, or why it should warrant a pirate's interest. If it was something made of gold or silver, or something with jewels, or at least something shiny, perhaps it would have made better sense.

He picked up a magnifying glass from the desk and looked over the details of the runes and carvings. Also on the desk was a newspaper, written in Spanish, with a large photograph of the artifact on the front page, and from sources unknown, a hardback copy of Cuneiform and You.

The lights aboard the airship flickered dimly, again. It was happening every other minute since the Iron Vulture escaped the thunderstorm, a distraction not making Kit's investigation of the artifact any easier.

He held the chest up to his ear and shook it, and there was indeed rattling from within; something was being kept safe under the latches. He attempted to pry the top open to see what was inside when he heard a Spanish-accented voice speaking right outside the door, accompanied by the _splish-splosh_ of wet footsteps. "What are you meaning Ratchet needs until sunrise?" A few seconds of quiet meant that Gibber was once again whispering the answer in the captain's ear.

"No, no, and more no!" replied Don Karnage. "We are not far enough from those gatos and their patrol boats to wait until sunrise. It's three o'clock already! I don't care what he has to do, just tell him to have my ship up _soon, _or I am going to use his thick dum-dum head for an anchor! What kind of air pirates do you expect us to be floating here like the sitting duckies?"

With a weary sigh Karnage pushed open his cabin door, eager to catch a moments peace and change out of his wet clothing; but when he looked up to his Kit fidgeting the artifact, one might have thought his heart jumped to his throat. "Ack! Boy! Put that down at once!"

Startled, Kit almost dropped it at Karange's tone, but Karnage made a running lunge and snatched the relic out of his grasp. Clutching it carefully in his hands, he glared down at Kit angrily. "Boy, if you have put the _tiniest _scratch on this I will mangle you into mulch! What have I told you about keeping your prying paws off my things!"

"Easy, I wasn't hurting it," Kit replied, rattled at Karnage's outburst. The captain usually did not get _that _excited with him over such things. "I was looking at it, that's all. Honest!"

"Looking? _Looking_?" He grabbed Kit by the back of his sweater and yanked him from the chair so that they were almost nose-to-nose. "Do you think valuables from museums are for _looking at_?"

"Well... _yeah_."

Karnage blinked and set him down. "Oh. Well, not _plundered-by-pirates _valuables from museums. You have no _idea _what I had to go through to get this!"

"I guess I don't," Kit said quietly, backing away from Karange's desk. "_I_ didn't get to go."

"Care to repeat that last part, Mister Me-and-My-Smarty-Type-Mouth-Would-Be-Loving-To-Scrub-Dirty-Kitchen-Pots-For-a-Month?"

Kit muttered something intelligible of an apology. "Look, I'm happy for you, okay? You got what you wanted, right?"

Karnage looked at the artifact admirably, regaining a calmer composure as he appeared to slip into a sudden daydream, the grand scope of his scheme with the artifact flashing before his eyes. "You know, I _did _do quite wonderful, if you do say so yourself."

"But...what _is_ it, anyway?" asked Kit. "What's inside?"

"That is for _me _to know and for _you _to have the pleasure of pondering how your cunning captain is going to show his genius once again. Now shoo, go ponder!"

"You know, the last time you said that, we went on a diamond heist and ended up to our armpits in clam chowder."

Karnage cringed. "First, boy, never bring that up! Second, _this _has nothing to do with clam chowder."

"Neither did the last time. But one thing after another, and there we were, swimming in clam chowder! I had chowder in my ears for a week!"

Karnage's eyes narrowed at him, viciously. "Say 'chowder' one more time, I dare you."

Kit shook his head, silent.

The captain pointed to the door. "I told you to scram! And stay scrammed!" He sat down at his desk and began picking at the chest's latches.

"Are you gonna open it?" Kit asked. "Here, lemme see, I think I figured out-"

Karnage slapped his hand away. "What did I just tell you?"

"To scram?"

"And who is still here _not scramming_?"

"Okay, okay, I'm scramming!"

Kit began to leave the room, but turned back just before the doorway. "One quick question?"

"One quick answer is _no_," Karnage snapped.

"How much is that thing worth?"

"It's priceless."

"How do you know?"

"Be-_cause_, it's old."

"How old?"

Karnage threw his arms in the air and brought them down to his desk with clenched fists. "Do you see a _date _stamped on this thing, boy? How should I know!"

Kit frowned and backpedaled out the door before random desk objects began to hurl his way. Karnage had gotten up and pushed shut the heavy steel door behind the boy with as hard of a slam as he could, completed by the click of the locks snapping into place.

Kit gave him a dirty look through the door. "Chowder."

The door began to unlock... Kit ran away.

* * *

Jock the helmsman was one of, if not _the_ most laid-back and agreeable of the entire pirate crew. He was usually more interested in finding a comfortable place to nap than pillaging. But tonight, alone on the bridge, he had his hands full, far more than he would ever care for, anyway.

He pushed and pulled at the various levers and throttles that controlled the Iron Vulture's engines. On a nearby table was two-way radio, with Ratchet's voice blaring at him from the flight deck on top of the airship: 'No, ya dummy, I said rotors two, four, and eight running, and the rest off! Ya got all of 'em hot on the starboard side!'

Jock grumbled under his breath and took a step back to see where he went wrong.

Kit approached the helm from behind him. "Any luck on the repairs?"

"Bah, can't even think straight with that mutt blowin' in my ear," replied Jock.

Kit nodded knowingly. "You need any help?"

"Aye, if ya wanna grab a musket for me."

"A musket? What for?"

"This radio's hollerin' like a sufferin' banshee. I'm thinkin' I may have to put it out of its misery soon."

'Jock, ain't you listenin' or not!' yelled Ratchet. 'I got _fires _starting up here!'

"You mean _your _misery," said Kit. He went over to one of the bridge's large, round windows, an tuned the out the commotion behind him as he gazed out into the night. The storm lumbered onward far in the distance, and occasionally accented the edge of pitch-black horizon with blurred flashes. Nearby, the vibrant silver glow of the stars danced across the ocean's lively crests.

Something happened to catch his attention; it was a wake parting the water, circling around and under the airship's prow. Kit put his nose all the way up to the glass, holding his breath so to keep it from fogging. He recognized the wake as created from a seaplane with two pontoons, but wider than what would be expected of the pirates' CT-37's; the craft appeared to have stopped just underneath the window, but Kit could only see it as a vaguely-shaped shadow. He was about to as Jock if he knew anything about it, but the helmsman was far to busy with his own problems.

'Jock!' lamented Ratchet over the radio. Judging by the background noises coming through in the transmission-shouting, clanking, drilling-thing up on the flight deck were no less than chaotic. For once Kit could count his lucky stars many of the crew did not think much of his strength, otherwise he might have been counted on to be up there, and share with the calamity. 'Hang it, Jock, do you even know what you're doing!'

Jock stopped manipulating the levers for a moment and scratched his nose. "Now that you mention it... no."

A loud hum suddenly rumbled through the Iron Vulture, drowning out all other sounds... then the airship's heavy metallic frame began to shake like an earthquake, with a terrible creaking noise.

"What's going on?" Kit yelled, covering his ears. All the lights began to dim and flicker; some lamps on the walls exploded in a burst of sparks.

Then, as the shaking receded, the tone of the hum became lower, until both faded away altogether.

Kit and Jock looked at each other, stunned, wondering what had just happened. Everyone aboard the airship most likely shared the exact same expression, as one could hear a pin drop in the sudden silence.

But not for long...

'Jock!' screamed Ratchet again, this time with much more urgency than ever before.

The helmsman flinched, nearly falling forward. He cleared his throat and picked up the radio microphone. "Um... yes?"

'Ya flea-bitten idiot! Ya just killed _**all **_the engines!'

Past the point of concern anymore, Jock pushed the radio box of the table, smashing it apart. "Oops. Seems I killed the radio, too."

"I'd say it fell off _accidently_," Kit said, gaining a nod of approval from Jock. "Whaddaya think happened, though?"

"Some sort of power surge, I suppose."

"Your fault?"

Jock shrugged and sat back against the helm wheel, one of his infamous napping places. "Could be. Don't care. It's late."

Kit wished him luck and decided to head for bed; at this late hour, he didn't want to be around when the captain blew his temper over the blackouts again. The ship was mostly deserted on the inside; still the halls creaked and groaned lowly under the ship's own weight, and echoed with distant shouting and hammering noises.

On the way to the berths, Kit got as far as the hangar entrance before he saw Karnage stomping in his direction. If he did not know any better, he could have sworn steam was venting out of his ears. Kit ducked into the hangar to get out of his way. Huffily, Karnage went on toward the bridge, swearing vigorously in a colorful blend of Spanish and English. The night was about to get even longer.

Being an air pirate rarely presented a dull moment, which fortunately more than made up for it presenting many a dull brain. If Karnage wasn't scheming plot after pillaging plot and taking the Iron Vulture all across the Pacific in search of adventure (which in pirate terms, always translated into "plunder"), there were always the more minor but hardly infrequent _mis-_adventures within the pirate clan itself... such as in recent example, some of the pirates were still picking gorilla bird feathers out of their fur from last week when a herd of the stenchy foul burst loose out of the hold of a captured plane and ran amuck through the ship. Kit could never think of the incident with a straight face... especially remembering Karnage's shriek when he awoke one morning finding two of the mangy beasts sleeping under his bed covers.

Also, of course, there were the planes. Karnage "owned" dozens of them, from his infamous fleet of CT-37 interceptors to special seaplanes the pirates had designed and built themselves from salvaged parts of wrecked and stolen aircraft. Kit had already known his fair share about aircaft since he was very young, but not as much as he learned with the pirates, finally being so close to them and being part of their regular upkeep. He helped keep them clean, usually washing a few of them a day as part of his chores, and helped wherever he could in their organization and maintenance.

He often found himself daydreaming over what plane would eventually be _his _when he was older (hopefully by age twelve, if not sooner, though he suspected the captain might have begged to differ). He knew better than to think their planes were the best craft in the sky, but they were airplanes nonetheless, and they still looked flat-out fun to fly. Whenever chance permitted, he would climb into one of them and get a righteous feel for what it'd be like to actually fly by himself.

In fact, standing alone in the dark and deserted hangar, the thought had suddenly occurred to him that for the moment, he had the entire fleet to himself, a moment too rare to pass up. The CT-37's were lined up and pointed toward the Iron Vulture's nose, poised ready to be launched at a moment's notice.

He climbed inside the cockpit of Karnage's tri-wing warplane and grabbed the flight stick with both hands. "Okay, ya mugs," he said to an imaginary squadron, "Enemy planes ahead! Break off and punch 'em full of holes!"

Adding his own engine and gunfire sound effects, Kit was soon lost in his own imagination, and in the middle of a dogfight high in the clouds. "I got their leader," he shouted, pulling his plane sharply into an inverted loop. Fiery bullet tracers whizzed by his windshield as he maneuvered behind the enemy fighter. With itchy fingers and one eye peering through his gunsight, Kit delicately but firmly pulled on the stick until the cross-hairs moved over his opponent's tail. He had him! "_Fire_!"

He squeezed the trigger, and, back in reality, all six of the tri-wing's cannons spit out a series of explosive rounds, annihilating a wooden crate at the far wall and putting a number of dents in the airship's inner hull. Kit whisked his hands away from the flight stick. "Omigosh!" he gasped, shrinking back in the seat. "I'm gonna get skinned!"

There had already been one incident where Kit "accidentally" released a CT-37's parking brake while playing in it, which sent the plane rolling into a recently-plundered pile of goods, namely a vat of molasses. Karnage had just about blown his top, and Kit spent several days cleaning the plane immaculate inside and out. No, _this _would definitely not bode well, either...

Kit was about to jump out of the plane-and start thinking up an alibi-when he heard footsteps from above.

From the lowest catwalk, Mad Dog peered over the railing, squinting to see the hangar floor. "Anybody here? Hell-_llo_?"

Silently, Kit had slid down to the plane's floorboard and tucked himself underneath the console, keeping his ears open for Mad Dog's every move. There were the _*clank* *clank* *clank* _noises as the pirate trod down the metal steps to the floor, then the scritchy-scratches as he rubbed his brow in utter confusion, and the sniffs and snorts detecting the odor of burnt gunpowder in the air.

"Huh? Hey, whose hidin' by the planes," Mad Dog shouted.

It sounded like Mad Dog was running towards the captain's plane. Kit sighed and was just about to surrender when he heard the pirate let out a sudden "Oof!", immediately followed by a thud that sounded as if a body had fallen limply to the floor. Kit waited still for a moment, testing for any sound, and then he could only chuckle; it wasn't as if this was the _first _time Mad Dog had clipped his head on a wing and knocked himself cold.

But it was no sooner Kit stirred to crawl out of the cockpit when he was practically plucked out, grabbed by his arm and throat. Before he could as much as yelp, he was hoisted up, one large hand wrapped tightly around his face, another holding his arm behind his back. "Don't make a sound, kid," a deep voice rumbled near his ear. "Or I can _really _give you something to scream about."

A muffled cry came from Kit, who struggled with absolute futility to escape. Whoever the intruder was, his grip was like hardened cement. He moved his hand from the boy's mouth and wrapped it under his jaw in a hard, viselike grip. "Settle down, _now_," the stranger said, quietly but yet with such intensity it made Kit stop struggling as if frozen by his very words. Mad Dog's unconscious body was sprawled under the plane, grim proof this wasn't a prank pulled by any of the other crewmen. "Real simple, kid, I'm here to take back what you pissants stole from the museum tonight, and I'll slaughter every single one of you to get it. But you help me out right, and that might not have to happen. Understand?"

"Yes," Kit replied, in all but a choked whisper.

The stranger loosened his grip just enough for Kit to talk freely. "Where is it? Heaven help you if you don't know."

"The-that box?"

"That 'box'," the stranger replied. "You've seen it. Where is it?"

"Are you _nuts_? You think you're gonna take it? You're gonna get yourself k-!"

The stranger silenced Kit with a curt jostle. "I appreciate your concern. Where do I go?"

"Oh, I'd love to tell you," Kit said through his teeth, to which the stranger retaliated by twisting his arm up further behind his back. Kit's cries were muffled by the brute's hand.

"Richter, easy, for goodness sake," a second male voice chided behind them, this one with a British accent. "He's only a lad."

The first stranger ignored him. "I asked you a question," he said to Kit, the tone of his rough voice becoming irritated.

"Wh-why should I tell you?" stammered Kit.

"Kid, I will _tear _your arm off," growled the stranger.

Kit felt that was reason enough. He pointed the direction of an adjacent hall. "It's in the captain's room. On his desk."

"Captain Karnage," the stranger said, contemplatively. As he turned to his accomplice, he let Kit back on his feet-at least to where his toes could touch the floor-holding fastly to his left wrist. "I could stomp that roach, do the world a favor."

"Yes, but we only need the artifact," said the other. "Our timing is superb, what with all of them running around on top of the ship, and I'd suggest making little incident as possible."

The gruff stranger let go of Kit's arm, swept his feet out from under him, then rested his heavy boot over the boy's chest. With only the flood lights set at the ceiling high above them, Kit could only see a hulking silhouette. "I'm not gonna fuss with you, brat, so listen. If you make me waste the time to tie you up, I'm gonna start with your neck first. Stay useful and you might not get hurt much."

"But you have _no idea _what you're doing," Kit grunted, pushing up against the brute's foot.

"You just stay quiet and get me to the captain's room," said the stranger, picking Kit up again by his wrist. "_I'll _worry about the rest."

Kit took a hard swallow and gestured toward an adjacent hallway, where he led the intruders. It was there that he finally attained his first good look at the two: Richter was a freight train of a bear, while his accomplice a thin, gray fox. Besides the contrast of their sizes, Richter wore worn fatigues and a hunting vest, and the other a much dressier open-collared white shirt and trousers. The latter stayed behind his partner, anxiously watching their flanks for approaching pirates.

Suddenly, Hacksaw had just rounded the corner and met face-to-face with the group, at point-blank. He didn't so much as blink before Richter burst forward and kicked him in the mid-section, then grabbed him from behind in a choke-hold that brought the pirate to his knees. Hacksaws eyes buldged and glazed over red, and Richter had positioned his arms in a manner ready to snap the pirate's neck.

"No!" cried Kit, but was grabbed and muffled by the fox, who turned his head away, wincing.

"For heaven sakes, just knock him out!" said the fox.

Richter stared hard at Kit, who had just noticed with no small concern that the the big bear had three grenades tied to the side of his belt, as well as a large machete strapped to his right thigh. Richter cracked just a slight grin and nodded, kept his arms steady under Hacksaw's jaw until there was no more struggle, and let the unconscious body drop. "Let go of the kid," he said. "Don't think we need to worry about him runnin' away."

Kit drew a shaky breath and started forward again, moving as if his ankles were bound by ball and chain.

"And this isn't a honeymoon cruise, Borden," Richter snorted to his partner. "You better keep in mind they won't return the favor." He gave Kit a push to get him moving faster. "The instant this goes south, all bets are off."

Kit led the two through the corridors and up a flight of stairs. He glanced around, hoping to spy just one opportunity to get away and warn the rest of the crew, but he was never out of reach of Richter's grasp. They found Don Karnage's cabin door wide open, and the chest still on his desk, everything as he had left it upon taking off on his latest storming tirade.

Richter shoved Kit onto the floor and out of his way, picked up the artifact, and unceremoniously snapped it open. From inside, he took out a stack of leathery parchments bound by a weaving black ribbon so that they opened as pages in a a book. The surface of the parchments were cluttered with ornate symbols and runes. On top of Karnage's desk, the intruders sorted through the pages hastily, until Richter found one that piqued his interest; it was full of sketches that resembled something of blueprints. While he studied it, the gray fox knelt down next to Kit.

"Say, what's a lad like you doing here, anyway?" asked the fox.

"I got a better question," said Kit. "What the heck are _you _doing here?"

"Easy, now," said the fox. "I just want to know if you're okay."

"Aw, I'm touched," Kit grumbled. "I'm a lot better than _you two _are gonna be any second now. You think you're just gonna waltz on out of here?"

"Well, one can hope," the fox grinned.

"Gah, I hope _not_," said Richter, running his finger down a parchment with one hand and absently caressing a grenade with the other. His coarse features looked ecstatic as he stared at the diagram. Apparently, smiling wasn't a habit. Kit glanced over at him and rubbed his shoulder, which ached something fierce; he felt oddly fortunate it was still attached.

"I'm sorry for my partner, I know he's a bit on the rough side," the fox said. "I don't know what to say. I know your hurt... I'd like to help, I guess I just don't know how, at the moment. My name's Tyler, by the way. What's yours?"

Kit hesitated for a moment and looked up at the stranger. He had a slight but gentle smile about him, sympathetic eyes, and, even as a stranger, a countenance that one might expect he was a naturally nice person; but, given recent events and the lug with the machete, not quite enough charm to warm up to.

"Go fly a kite," said Kit.

Tyler stood up, frowning. "Well."

"We got something special here, Borden," Richter said, sifting through more of the leather pages. "Look at this..." Richter flipped back to where he found the 'blueprints' and held it out for for Tyler to see. It had sketches of an intricate design of gears and pulleys, all surrounding a star-shaped symbol with two glyphs in the middle. "I don't know what this is, but we want to know. That's the king's seal on it."

"What of any maps?" asked Tyler. "What I wouldn't give for one measly map."

As the two discussed it, Kit started scooting his way toward the door.

"One more inch and I'll tear you in half, kid," Richter suddenly said, without turning to look.

_'Rats_,_'_ Kit thought.

"He's got the right idea, though," said Tyler. "We'll figure this out later."

Richter placed the parchments back in their stone container, and fit the lid back on. "What about the brat?"

"Well, good question," said Tyler. "I'm not sure."

"I say let the brat go," said Kit, but it was a suggestion easily ignored.

"I could take care of him, quick," Richter said, making Kit start.

"Yes, I _know _you could," said Tyler, "but I think you're a bit better than that."

"I ain't gonna _snuff _the ankle-biter, relax." Richter glanced around for opportune places to tie Kit to, or even stuff him inside, until they made their getaway. "For cryin' out loud, if this isn't the bedroom of a pansy," he muttered, noticing Karnage's fluffy red bedspread and matching velvet drapes.

Tyler paused in thought for a moment, then knelt next to Kit again. "Is your father one of the pirates here? Any of your family?"

From over the fox's shoulder, Kit was watching Richter with wide eyes and didn't seem to hear the question; the grizzly had just ripped off a power cord from a nearby lamp and was studying a chest at the foot of Karnge's bed as if measuring it for size. "This just might work."

"Just keep your dirty mitts to yourself, ya big elephant's butt," Kit said, holding his hurt shoulder. Though he tried to conceal it, he was quaking inside; still, somehow, giving Richter lip seemed like the smartest thing to do.

A contemptuous sneer wrinkled Richter's snout, and he took a long stride word the boy and wound his hand back, about to cuff him over the head, but only for Tyler stepping in front of him. "He _did _do what he was asked to, Jesse."

"_He _isnot one of your nephews, mama bear," Richter growled. "He's one of _them_. You keep playing nice, and he's looking to get your throat cut!"

"Just let me try for _one _second," Tyler said. Then he spoke to Kit, "Lad, quickly now. Why don't you just come with us, away from these barbarians."

Kit looked at him like he had spoken a completely foreign language. "_Huh_?"

Richter wasn't exactly pleasantly surprised with the notion. "Are you outta your head, Borden?"

"Well why not? There's foster care for little ones like him, I'm sure he'd be placed somewhere nice. Anything has to be better than this mess."

"This mess is my _home_, tea-bag," Kit snapped. "Look, you two got what you wanted, so why don't you get lost. _If _you think you'll be lucky enough to get out."

Richter ran his hand down his face, frustrated. "Forget the sweet-talk. These crooks don't _think _like you do."

"I don't know what you have here, but you've got to imagine that there are better places in the world to be," said Tyler. He held out his hand to help Kit up. "Please, lad, no time here. You'll not be harmed."

Kit shuddered, wrestling with a visceral reaction from deep inside at the mere thought of an orphanage. But then, after a hard swallow, he looked up at the fox with eyes wide with wonder. "You mean it?" he asked coyly.

"Of course," said Tyler. Richter raised an eyebrow, incredulously.

Kit smiled and took Tyler's hand... then promptly leapt off the floor, pushed the fox on his rear, and made a running beeline out of the room. He shouted as loud as he could: "Hel-!" His cry for help and his run for safety were abruptly stifled by an brutal swat from Richter. Kit bounced off the wall and lay sprawled on the floor, stunned and nearly motionless.

Richter glowered over the boy. "Nice try, bad decision."

"I'm not quite sure you had to strike him like that," said Tyler, scowling.

Richter ignored him, and just as Kit began to stir, he clasped his free hand around the boy's neck, and hoisted him up toward the ceiling.

"Let's just leave him be, then!" Tyler cried. "Stop hurting him!"

"He won't be feeling a thing," said Richter, in a hushed and chilled tone. "He's gonna go for a nice, little nap."

Choking, Kit's eyes welled with tears, his feet kicking wildly but to no avail. The lights on the Iron Vulture started to flicker again.

Richter glanced around the room. "This don't look good..." With a brief buzzing sound, the ship lost power, and there was pitch blackness, save for the star shine through the broadside window.

While the two intruders muttered amongst themselves how they were going to get out, Richter had unwittingly loosened his grip just enough... Kit got his chin under Richter's thumb...

"This is all we need," Tyler said. "What do you suggest now, candles?"

"Will you shuddup and let me-_yeowch_!" yelped Richter, and in the darkness there was the clank of the stone chest hitting the floor. "What the-! Dammit!"

"What bloody happened?"

"The brat bit me! He got away!"

"The tome!" cried Tyler. "You dropped it!"

Kit had shook away from Richter and made a break out the door, hurriedly feeling his way through the dark, toward the bridge.

Tyler dropped on all fours and felt for the dropped parchments. "He's going to get help, we don't have much time!"

"I'm goin' after him!" Unfortunately for Richter, he wasn't quite as familiar with the airship as Kit. When it ran for the door, he missed by a good three feet and ran smack into the wall, knocking himself flat on his back. The onslaught of swearing that ensued rivaled the clamorous noise from the flight deck.

With heaving breaths and favoring his hurt arm, Kit ran through the corridors, tripping several times and bouncing off the walls. He was almost at the bridge when the Iron Vulture's lights again flickered to life. His coarse shouts for help were all too weak.

"That hurt, kid!" Richter growled from the end of the corridor.

Kit picked up his pace as fast as his legs would carry him, but Richter was simply too fast. In a beat, he caught up with the boy and swiped him off his feet, pinning him against the wall with his forearm. "Let me show you how much!"

Karnage sat in his chair in the bridge, exhausted, his throat dry from all the yelling he had just done. He wasn't at all pleased with the temporary power loss. Mad Dog, Dump Truck, and Gibber were all beside him, in case he felt the need to once again remind them what _eediots _they were.

"Let me go!" Kit's voice screeched in the distance, making Karnage's ears perk up. "Somebody, he-elp!"

Karnage groaned, and stood up in a huff. "What is going on _now_! Boy, you better be _dying _out there, or you will be!" The captain stomped out of the bridge with his 'favorite" lackeys right behind him. Just outside the room, he saw Kit in the grasp of a brute of a bear, while his partner had just rounded the corner with the chest in his hands.

"Intruders! My map!" Karnage reached for his cutlass, but before he could stretch an inch of steel from its sheath, Richter dropped Kit and charged at him like a raging bull, shoulder tackling all four pirates back into the bridge like bowling pins.

Richter looked down at the fallen pirates, wanting to do more damage while he had the chance. Then he sneered down at Kit, a cold smirk forming on his face. "You wanna save 'em, kid?" He plucked one of his grenades from his belt, bit off its pin, and threw it into the bridge, in the midst of all those still gathering their wits. "You got ten seconds. Fetch."

Karnage woozily began pushing himself from the floor. He was too dazed to see Kit pointing to the grenade that rolled between his arms, or hear his shouts of warning.

Richter was counting down with his fingers. Kit ducked with his arms over his ears, eyes tightly closed. Richter clenched his hand into a fist as the time for the grenade should have run out... but nothing happened. He frowned. "Dud. Shoot!"

"If you're quite done, I'd say right now would be a good time to depart," Tyler said, backpedaling in the other direction. "We'll be a tad outnumbered any second!"

Richter reached for another grenade.

"We just might _need _those other two getting out of here!" Tyler warned, as the pirates were just getting back up.

With some reluctance, Richter silently agreed and started the other way, and the two intruders ran out of sight.

In the bridge, the Captain has just gotten back up, his eyes red with fury. "Get up you moronic morons!" he barked to his crew, giving Mad Dog more than a little help to his feet with a kick in the rear. "After them! After them now! Block every door! They have my treasure map!"

* * *

In one year's passing from that night, many things had changed, for the pirates, for Kit, even for the intruders who managed to steal from thieves. And some things had not changed much at all; not far where the air pirates had first acquired the artifact, more items like it were being sought, and interests were still at work in the thick, expansive clutches of the Aplacatan jungle, the Atronador Basin.

There, in a place far removed from the concern of clocks and calendars, a crew of archeologists was hard at work excavating the ruins of a citadel, long drowned in the jungle. Dawn was just rising, inciting a duel of shadow and light through the thick boughs of the giant, ancient trees. One defensive wall of the citadel still stood, built of stone and rusted iron pillars. The leader of the expedition, an Oxfurry professor of history by the name Bagheera, sat on the wall and wrote in his journal, using his knee as a flat surface. Fluently his pen filled the blank pages with a fervent train-of-thought:

_Rhamastan. Piece by piece, clue by clue, we are drawing near to one of history's grandest treasure troves. We are acting on faith in the truth of legend as much as anything else, still, we can all sense it, and it gives us enthusiasm beyond what strength the jungle saps, hour by hour. It is here, somewhere._

_Somewhere, indeed. I sit here in the midst of a jungle that cartographers still to have yet charted its far reaches. There is no needle small enough, nor a haystack large enough, to make such a comparison. The gates of Rhamastan are hidden. Currently, my crew and I are excavating about the ruins of one of the largest ziggurats we've yet to discover, in utmost secrecy to the prying eyes of our opponent, and I believe we have finally hit paydirt._

Bagheera paused to look up at the structure before him. Rising to treetops that surrounded it, the ziggurat was comparable in size as any of the pyramids of ancient Aridia, possibly larger, for it was difficult to tell exactly how much of the structure, and the city that once adorned it, remained under the ground. Its top, which once had come together in a step-like triangular shape, was by now worn down to a rounded knob, where presently one of his crewmen stood taking measurements.

_Comparing our references with the ruins we have discovered in the area, a year's search for the capital of the Felocian empire, the citadel Sin Rha'Amakhan, has come to fruition. The size of the walls, the ruins of the gates and watchtower placements, and the appropriate size of the ziggurat temple all corroborate this one conclusion. There are two mountain ridges immediately on either size of the site, which would lend credence to the tales that the citadel was consumed by a gigantic landslide during the Aridian-Felocian War._

_I will gladly accept whatever morsel of information we might uncover here, though of priority is to seek out the tomb of the Gatekeeper of Rhamastan, Zul Rhakeith. Our recovered records told that he designed the very gates of Rhamastan, made them unpassable. He was later mortally wounded in the final assault in Aridia, and was brought back to the citadel to be laid to rest... no doubt with all his possessions and record of accomplishments, such information that I hope will lead us to our grand destination._

_Against us now are thousands of year of mystery and a very large amount of dirt. Entering the ziggurat is now priority one. Much of it is below ground, and what we see is like the tip of an iceberg-or perhaps even the head of the tombstone. It is the only structure left standing, and it is our only means of further information. To consider the amount of time it would take a crew of our size to remove all the dirt and find its gates... well, I should live so long. Our time is short here. We have made a good camp and I think we have plenty of food. It's ammunition on which we are running low._

_Thus, I have hardly any qualms about blasting our way inside. My crew is currently planning the placement of our dynamite supply. Perhaps I betray the ethical standards of my profession in this, but I've spent far too many years on this quest to impose upon myself too heavy a burden of preservation. _

Suddenly a shotgun went off in the near distance, making Bagheera jump. Then a second blast. "Hang it all-what happened?" he hollered out.

"Varan!" shouted back one of his crewman, who was unseen, from somewhere in the foliage. "No worry, it's dead now."

"Bloody lizards," Bagheera cringed. He took a cautious glance around him, making sure there weren't any such beasts nearby. Though an Atronador varan would hardly be able to climb the wall he sat upon, the mere thought twisted his stomach.

_We remain hopeful. Though, after so long, that in itself is nothing short of a dare... I'm growing tired, that I admit. We all are. We've been in this jungle too long, deprived of every comfort. The weather is either hot and humid or stone cold, the giant condors in the hills, the varans in the jungle, not to mention mosquitoes and snakes..._

"Argh," he growled, scratching the back of his neck.

_Oh, how I shall remember the mosquitoes. We must take great care of ourselves against the creatures here, for we have no means of emergency assistance. Our radios malfunction the further we go into the jungle, a phenomenon we've grown used to by now but are baffled as to what may be causing the interference. I can't help but muse the interference is from underground, somehow, from the dead citadels. The earth here holds many secrets._

Bagheera flipped to a fresh page to continue, but a buzzing noise from an approaching airplane caught his attention. The crewmen at the site stopped working and looked to the sky as the small craft flew overhead, and, to their surprise, a lone figure jumped from the plane.

Bagheera tossed his journal aside and sprung to his feet. "Good grief! Who on earth...!"

A white parachute bloomed opened, sending its occupant gliding down and out of sight into the trees, where everyone ran to. By the time most of them arrived, the parachute was hopelessly tangled in a thicket, leaving the jumper swinging just above the ground.

"Blimey, it's a woman!" said one of the crewmen.

"Hello there," she replied, struggling to get out of the harness. While she was hidden from the waist up by a briefcase she held in both arms, the men took particular notice to her legs kicking from the shorts of her khaki field uniform. "Now would it be too much to ask for a little h-_whoops_!" The tree branches suddenly snapped, and she fell into the brush below.

Bagheera cut through the crowd, out of breath from the mad sprint he had just taken. "Somebody tell me what's going on around here!"

"Some broad just jumped out a plane!" someone answered.

"Was it somebody's birthday?" another inquired.

"I'm not 'some broad,' thank you," she said, pulling herself from the foliage and adjusting the large spectacles on her nose. "And thanks for the help."

"Dear heavens," exclaimed Bagheera. "Are you all r-Myra?"

"Mr. Bagheera!" She grabbed the panther's hand with both of hers and shook it vigorously. "So good to see you again!"

Bagheera blinked. "Myra! Well, yes, I-likewise! You'll pardon me, I'm just a bit surprised! Why if I'd known you wished to join us, I would have been most happy to have made arrangements." Bagheera held Mrya's parachute pack as she wrestled free of its harness. "Arrangements that wouldn't have included jumping out of airplanes, if you'd prefer."

"Oh, a little jump," she said. "It's nothing!"

"I trust that you're finding us there means you've researched the parchments we handed you," said Bagheera.

"Of course! Kept it all top secret, as you requested. I can't wait to tell you how fascinating they were!"

"But we've been telephoning your office for weeks! You've never replied."

"No phones out on the field, I'm afraid. But I'm so glad we could meet here!" She held her briefcase up and patted it on the side. "I started comparing those parchments to the hieroglyphs in Pharaoh Oporkon's tomb describing the war, and I definitely think we're on to something!" Over Bagheera's shoulder, her eye caught the ziggurat. "Oh, look at that wonderful building!"

Myra hurried toward the ruins, speaking to no one in particular about how long she had wanted to explore a Felocian city. The others followed shortly behind.

"She's Aridia's Minister of Culture, and for the most part, a walking historical encyclopedia," Bagheera explained to his questioning crew. "Value her opinion, and you'll all be gentlemen around her, understand?"

"_I_ know her," said Bagheera's nephew and chief assistant, Stephan. "She's the one Tyler used to go on about."

"Shush now," scowled Bagheera. "That's none of our business."

Myra and Bagheera sat in his tent, two fold-up chairs at a card table, where Myra was unpacking her briefcase: notes, photographs and sketches of maps, hieroglyphs, and cuneiform parchments.

"A year ago, a crew of fishermen snared a sarcophagus on their ship's anchor," said Bagheera, flipping through Myra's notes as she kept adding to the stack; the notes were quite unorganized and apparently hurriedly written. "It belonged to a royal Felocian scribe-an incredibly rare find, absolute luck. They only resurfaced half the casket, the other half was presumably crushed by the anchor, and who knows what else with it. But what they were able to salvage was a burial tome, containing several pages of information we had never seen. It had details about this site, Amakhan, a short account of the Rhakeith the Gatekeeper, and the schematics for how the gates of Rhamastan were forged here. You've likely noted that Felocian cartography is very cryptic and not a terrible help to us, thus it's taken the better part of a year to comb the jungle finely enough to be where we're at now."

"Did Aplacito City give you much trouble over acquiring the tome?" asked Myra.

"No, not quite," replied Bagheera. "They never knew we had it. Tyler managed to apprehend it from a group of bandits who burglarized the museum shortly after the discovery."

"Oh, my! How is Tyler? I haven't seen him for ages."

"He's tending to matters back home, but he's very much involved in this. Now, what was found inside the tome was what we sent you. We were hoping to find any cross-references from the Aridians."

"And indeed I did!" beamed Myra.

"Most importantly, Myra, did you find anything about Rhamastan itself? Where it was, or _is_?"

"Nothing like that, I'm afraid. Strangely, there's very little recorded about what should have been a most significant victory for the pharaoh." By this time, much of Myra's documents were scattered on the floor. She picked out a photograph from the tomb of the Aridian Pharaoh Oporkon, and hieroglyphic symbols on the wall that told the story of his reign. "After the fall of Amakhan, the Aridians re-grouped and sieged the Felocians for 'two thousand sunrises' They never say where exactly the siege was, and it just suddenly ends by saying they won by, quote, 'sealing their doom.'"

"Really. They never reclaimed their plundered wealth?"

"It never said. If they had, I think there would have been mention of it."

"Did it say anything about afterward?" asked Bagheera. "What happened to the Felocians?"

"The context of the hieroglyphs suggest victory through annihilation," said Myra. "The presumption there would be that none of the Felocians survived."

"Annihilation." Bagheera leaned back in his chair, scratching his brow. "If they so thoroughly decimated the Felocians, why did they not take back anything to show for it?"

"I also found corroborative information on Amakhan." Myra picked up a short stack of notes and shuffled through them. "Well, it's all here somewhere! The Aridians wrote that they had all but taken the city, when from out of nowhere the mountains came down. Everything wiped out except for the temple!"

"Did it say what they believed caused it to happen?"

"They didn't, but I noticed your Felocian scribe did. To believe him, the king rigged the city to self-destruct."

"Felocian engineering at its most terrible," nodded Bagheera. "It's not the only account we've found verifying that claim, though what I wouldn't give to know what they used as an explosive. Even for their cunning, it was a few thousand years too early for TNT."

"If it's true, we're sitting on a mass grave. Thousands... maybe hundreds of thousands..."

Bagheera picked out Myra's photographs from the table, scanning over the hieroglyphics. He chuckled, "Well, it's Greek to me. I'm glad you're helping us sort out the other side of the story."

"My pleasure! Officially, I'm here to see about recovering any Aridian property that was looted during the war. Better late than never, I suppose."

"Best of luck on _that_," Bagheera said, flatly; he didn't look up from the photographs.

She tilted her head at him, not sure what to make of that reply.

"Myra, the most important thing this venture is... well, it's not politics. Aridia may have its interests, I'm sure the Alpacito and Oxfurry will want their say in the matter as well. It could be a very complicated, messy situation."

Myra laughed. "Wouldn't it be wonderful to claim it all for yourself!"

Bagheera laughed quietly, if not nervously. "I don't know about _all _of it," he muttered.

From outside the tent, someone shouted, "Uncle, all's ready for the dynamite!"

"Jolly good, Stephen!" Bagheera shouted back. "Light it up, boys!"

"The... dynamite?" asked Myra. "What would that be for?"

Bagheera stacked up the photographs neatly and left them on the table. He grabbed his water canteen and skirted out the tent quickly. "Blowing a side or two off the temple."

Myra sat blinking, as if dazed. "You're... _blow it up_?" She ran out of the tent after him.

"We can't get into it any other way," said Bagheera, giving a thumbs-up to his crew standing around the ziggurat. "A team this size, it'll take too long to dig to its base. This way, at least we can break into a passage."

"It's been here for thousands of years! You can't just blow it up! That's not what-"

"It's not what we do, yes, I know," snapped Bagheera. "Except this time."

"But-but-!" Myra stood in front of him, stammering to find the words to express her protest. "How could you!"

"I'm choosing the better good. There's no secret there's ruins in the jungle, but just finding ruins won't help us. There are few enough people as it is who will lend us the slightest bit of credibility, and the list grows shorter every time all I can show for risking life and limb in this snake pit are photographs of crumbled watchtowers. The chancellor of Oxfurry will decline funding if I can't bring back something substantial. Alpacito City itself will hardly spend its resources exploring, just fools like us who are willing to go the distance. We're not here to gawk at old ruined walls, or ogle at statues."

"All stand clear!" a crewman shouted. "Blasting in ten seconds!"

"Certainly we can learn from each piece we find," Myra pleaded. "The chancellor should appreciate that much, at least!"

"I've only mentioned half the problem. The other issue is much more pressing. We are in a race, my dear lady. Out-financed, feasibly out-numbered, most definitely out-_gunned_ if it should ever come to it, and the one advantage we have over our opponent is that he does not yet know of this citadel, but that certainly won't last long."

The crew had begun to count down from ten.

"A race?" asked Myra. "I don't understand, against whom?"

"Shere Khan," the panther replied.

As the countdown came to 'ONE!', Mrya and Bagheera ducked down and covered their ears. The explosion was loud and fiery, and blasted smoke and dust over the entire campsite. After a lot of coughing, and taking cover from falling shards of shattered stone, the team looked up at the fruit of their labor: the tip of the ziggurat was gone, and a passage gaped open.

"Uncle, come look!" said Stephen; he was the first to run back to the ziggurat. "We did it! We found a way inside the bugger!"

The broken slope of the ziggurat revealed a hole that was the top corner of a room or tunnel; the crew hurried with pickaxes and shovels to clear the debris and helped make the opening at least large enough to crawl inside.

Bagheera was the first to go; he practically plunged himself inside, flinging out handfuls of stony debris behind him as he crawled through. He slid and tumbled headfirst onto a hard floor, finding himself amidst pitch blackness, save for the beam of sunlight piercing through the hole, which revealed little but uncertain shapes and shadows within a short distance.

He coughed, the dust was thick in the air; in the ray of sun, it looked like a dense, glowing white fog setting stilly around him. He scooted back toward the mouth of the opening for a last breath of fresh air, and to call for a lantern. "Hurry boys," he said as they fetched what he requested, "I've no doubt there'll be plenty to see in here!"

"I'm coming, too!" said Myra. She tried to slide down feet-first, but to her dismay, she landed squarely on a person below.

"I'm sorry," she gasped.

"For what?" ask Bagheera, from beside her, not below.

Myra jumped back. "Didn't I just step on you?"

The crew lowered down a lantern and a flashlight to Bagheera through the opening, and with a quietly echoing click of the flashlight's switch, the walls of the room were touched with light for the first time in an age.

Outside, Stephan and the others waited to hear Bagheera's reaction, yet they heard nothing. "Uncle? What do you see?"

"Don't come down here!" ordered Bagheera. "Any of you!"

"But what is it?"

Bagheera and Myra stood close together, his flashlight sweeping the floor. It was cluttered with broken scraps of wooden beams, scattered chunks of stone from the crumbling walls and ceiling, and countless dozens of skeletal corpses, each wearing plated and chain battle armor, most pieces still embedded with swords and arrows that killed their wearers.

"It's a war zone," Bagheera replied. "Send us down more light, boys, we're going to need it!"

"I recognize this," Myra said, kneeling down over one of the fallen soldiers. "It's Aridian armor."

"Felocian and Aridian alike fought to their end here. Heaven knows what kind of traps that may still be active. We'll have to be on top guard."

They were on a balcony of sorts; to the sides it would have continued as a tunnel, but not too far out crumbled rock had blocked passage. To the front was a ledge, and below the ledge was further pitch blackness. Bagheera climbed on his knees over the ledge and peered down with his flashlight, but the flashlight did little to show anything about the ground below. He then took a coin from his pocket and threw it down, listening for how long it took for it to hit bottom, which was not more than two seconds.

Myra received two lanterns from the crew above, and handed one to Bagheera. He stood up to dust off his trousers, though in such a dusty room it was quite illogical, if he had actually thought about it. He called out to Stephen, "Lad, get us the longest rope you can find and tie the end down good... we're going down there for a better look."

Soon after, Bagheera and Myra descended by rope to the level below. They stepped down into a dank corridor, littered with more armored corpses. They followed the way through slowly, keeping careful eyes on the ground before them. The walls were featureless, except that on either side there were rows of what looked like half-shaped bowls that must have been used as oil lamps. The corridor had a sharp incline to it, and was cluttered with rubble that had broken off from the walls, which made it dangerous if one didn't watch his footing. It would descend straight ahead for long stretches, then turn left, then repeat the same pattern, leading them in a square spiral down toward the base of the structure.

It was all so still inside the ziggurat, an uneasy silence that would not seem possible in a living world. Only their footsteps, though lightly treaded, filled the void with their own scratchy echos. The air was warm and stuffy, and held and unpleasant scent of the likes of rot and mildew.

The corridor began to level, and soon opened into another room, where straight ahead they saw on the far side, through traces of black grime, a large, faded picture that was painted on the bare bricks of the wall itself. They stood for a long moment to observe it. It was an image of a battle scene, where soldiers dressed in ancient armor and carrying spears and large shields surrounded a wounded reptilian beast in the midst of the forest. One particularly large figure, a lion whose armor was highlighted in gold trim, held a foreboding, curved sword over the beast, as if to be about to relieve it of its head.

"How wonderful," said Bagheera, through a shortness of breath. "I've seen nothing like this. We've found sculptures, but never paintings."

"They style is so realistic, so far ahead of its time." Myra held her lantern close to the wall. Many of the bricks were gone, leaving black spaces in the image like missing pieces to a jigsaw puzzle. "The exaggerated one in the middle, he must be the king."

"King Rhama, indeed. He's declaring his might over the world. I wouldn't be entirely sure, but I think the creature he's standing over represents the god Sargon, a demon of death and chaos. That is quite odd indeed... what we've known of the king is that he had quite an affinity for Sargon."

Though at first reluctant, lest she accidently scratch the paint, Myra carefully wiped away some of the grime from the image of the king's armor. In the glow of her lantern, the golden highlights began to glisten in a manner the rest of the paint could not. It was a detail that particularly caught Bagheera's attention.

"Now that's no ordinary paint," he said.

Myra nodded in agreement, having seen more than her fair share of lustrious Aridian pharaoh sarcophagi. "It's real gold."

Bagheera smirked, then began to laugh out loud.

"What?"

"They've been mining this country for gold for centuries, with not a single vein to show for it. But the Felocians knew where to look... and I know there's more where that came from!"

To their right was a wide archway, from where they could hear faint echoes of slowly dripping water. Crossing through it, they found themselves standing upon a ledge that overlooked a vast sea of blackness. Given how long he had been walking down that first corridor, Bagheera figured they were well toward the bottom of the ziggurat, and were now standing over the main court. They could not see much from where he stood; the space was simply too big, and the brightness of their lanterns and flashlights were humbled amidst the overwhelming darkness.

They followed the ledge around, passing by many more entrances to other rooms along the way. They poked their heads into each one briefly; the shadowy shapes of corpses were everywhere, their boney fingers wrapped around their weapons and skulls agape with battle shouts. It was too difficult to tell if there were more to the rooms than that, so they agreed to return to them sometime later for a more thorough search.

They found a stairway and took it down to the main floor, where as they walked about, they began to discover just what a task lay ahead of them. As heavy and massive as the ziggurat was, millennia of ravage earthquakes had their toll on it. They had to climb over broken stone pillars that were strewn across the floor, which itself was covered in slippery, mossy grime over a porous black rock bed. They saw where the heavy brick walls had been cracked wide and long enough to let dirt, strings of moss, and tree roots seep inside. Trickles of water also fell through, leaving small pools in some places. Unlike the rest of the structure, the floor was clear of any dead soldiers.

They spotted what looked like a towering pile of dirt and black rock. It seemed to go up and up, to the very top of the room. A closer look revealed giant beams of wood lying near the foot of the mound, and many, many skeletons protruding from the mess.

"The temple gates," said Bagheera. "I don't know how Rhama blew the citadel up, but can't you see it happening, right where we're standing: the soldiers from both sides suddenly engaging in an urgent truce, scrambling to shut and brace the gates before they're consumed. The force of the blast crushed the gates and them with it."

"You're _good _at this," smiled Myra.

"Ha ha, I know! Come now, there's another passage this way!"

* * *

It was a cold, foggy morning in Cape Suzette. Woken suddenly by unintelligible squawking noises, Baloo groggily rolled over and opened one eye to check the time. The hands on the alarm clock were still pointing far too low for it to be time to get out of bed. "Good gravy," he muttered, and buried his head under his pillow. So close to the bay, it was common to be bothered by seagulls and steam whistles, and usually he could sleep right through such nuisances, but there was something inexplicably nagging about the noise he heard now.

Kit came in from the bathroom, wiping a bit of toothpaste off his sweater. He began to make his bed quietly when he noticed Baloo stirring. "Morning, Papa Bear."

"Mm. Kid, be a pal and go shoo those seagulls away from the window, huh?"

"Those aren't seagulls, that's Miz Cunningham. She's already downstairs, on the phone."

"What time is it?"

"Not even eight, I couldn't sleep. It sounds like she's arguing with someone."

"Huh, an' not me, for a change. You goin' somewhere?"

"I'm gonna go down the street and grab some muffins. Maybe I'll see if the guys are up and wanna do something."

"Have fun." Baloo yawned widely from under the covers, sucking his blanket into his maw.

"You think she's okay? She's been kind of edgy lately."

"You know how she is. Business, business, business."

"I think she might be in a little trouble. Pettifoot's furniture's gonna cost ten thousand clams."

"Fer that old junk? Now how in the world did you find _that _out?"

"Last night, in a letter she left in her desk."

"Not the 'super-private trespassers-will-be-shot' drawer? How often do ya go _through _that thing, anyway?"

"What if she can't cover it... you don't think we might lose anything, do you?"

"Like what?"

Kit hesitated for a moment. "Like... what if she has to sell the Sea Duck?"

Baloo sat up as if he'd been prodded by a hot poker. "Whoa, time out, Li'l Britches! Nothin' like that's gonna happen."

Glumly, Kit straightened the remaining wrinkles from his bed. "It's almost happened before."

"Hey, c'mere a minute." Baloo waited for Kit to approach the side of his bed, and said, "You're thinkin' about all this _way _to much to be good for ya. Now why are ya jumpin' to conclusions?"

"I don't know. I just don't like it when it's like this. You guys are always fighting about money."

"Now that ain't true. Heh heh, we fight about lots of things!"

Despite himself, Kit giggled at that. "I guess that's true."

"So cheer up, will ya?" Baloo smiled, lightly tapping the boy on the cheek. "Besides, if was that bad, Becky'd have us over our ailerons in some new quick-money scheme... you gotta figure as long as we're not makin' milk shakes with kangaroos, we're all right."

"I know… but still," said Kit. "I just don't like it when money's so tight around here."

Baloo fell back on his pillow. "Well, money ain't everything, kiddo."

Kit cocked an eyebrow. "But you're _always_ broke."

"Now that ain't true! Well, maybe it is, but that don't matter."

"And remember that whole 'double-my-money' thing? What about that?"

"Free enterprise, kid. Free enterprise."

"And how many weekends have you tried to get off for treasure hunts?"

"Hey, I paid my tab off at Louie's by doin' that!"

"Nice try," chuckled Kit. "Face it, money's _good_. And I don't like it when Miz Cunningham gets so wound up about it. _Or _you."

"Aw, _I'm _all right," said Baloo. "And ol' Beckers just needs ta learn how to relax a little. So we lost a little cargo this month. It ain't the end of the world."

"_And_ last month."

"It wasn't _our _fault, ya know."

"Yeah, but nobody's blaming the pirates."

"It's just a lil' bad luck, that's all."

"A _little_," Kit scoffed.

"'Sides," said Baloo, "mopin' around 'bout it won't help anything, ya know."

"Yeah, you're right. No more mopin'." Kit grinned and held up two fingers. "Navigator's honor."

"Now yer talkin' some sense," said Baloo.

"You wanna get some breakfast with me? Get a start on the day?"

"Nah, you go 'head. Not that I don't think it's gonna be a be-_yoo_-tiful day..." Baloo rolled over and threw the blanket over his head and yawned again. "But just not for 'nother two hours. Or five."

"All right," said Kit. "See ya later, then."

Downstairs, at her desk, Rebecca Cunningham held the phone in one hand and a bottle of aspirin in the other. "But Mrs. Proudfeather, you have my word that Higher For Hire will deliver your crystal safe and-yes, I'm sure chandeliers are very expensive… I _understand_ your concern but-who? Mrs. Pettifoot? Oh, she's a friend of yours? Well yes, she did hire us to deliver her antiques… yes, that unfortunately _did_ happen, but that wasn't our-no, that's true, we don't have armed security, but Mrs. Pettifeather, I mean Mrs. Proudfoot, I mean…!"

She set the telephone down for a moment and let out an aggravated groan, then continued somewhat calmly, "Mrs. Proudfeather, there hasn't been an air pirate spotted for weeks, and-but even _we_ get robbed now and then, but it's very few and far between, I assure you! There's no reason to cancel your-Mrs. Proudfeather, _please_ listen to-!"

_*click*_

"Hello? Ugh!" Rebecca slammed the phone down. "I'm going to tell that old bat what she can do with her chandeliers."

Kit stepped down the stairs quietly, and slowly enough while he was out of Rebecca's sight to where he heard much of the conversation. When he reached the bottom floor, Rebecca was slouched over her desk on her elbows, rubbing her eyelids. Molly was wrapped in a blanket and fast asleep in Baloo's easy chair.

Kit cleared his throat. "Good morning, Miz Cunningham."

She sat up, a little startled. "Oh! Good morning, Kit. How are you?"

"Fine, thanks. Still waking up."

"I'm sorry if I woke you," she said. "I don't like being here this early."

"It's no problem. I'm going out, do you need anything?"

"No, I don't think so. Will you be back by eleven? I just made a terrific deal with the museum downtown. We'll have a big delivery today."

"Sure," said Kit. "Wouldn't miss it."

"Good! See you when you get back."

"Right." Kit opened the front door, but stopped, and looked back at her. "Uh... how are _you_?"

"Me? Fine! Just fine." But a sympathetic frown from Kit left her feeling discovered. She sighed, and smiled at him. "I'm a little swamped today, but I'll make it."

Kit nodded and went on his way. Rebecca slid back in her chair, popping the asprin bottle open. "I'll make it, all right, but no promises that there won't be any casualties."

* * *

Back in the Atronador Basin, Bagheera's crew took their boss's absence as an opportunity for a long-awaited (and very extended) break. Stephan and another sat in the shadow of the trees with a deck of cards.

"I'm beginning to get worried, Jimbo," said Stephen , taking his eyes off his hand of cards to glance at the ziggurat. "I never imagined he would take this much time."

"Aw, nothin' to worry about," said his jaguar companion. "The ol' bugger's quicker than a bloomin' jack-rabbit when he needs to be, you know that. Don't know about the broad, but she looked like she could hold her own. Now you got any two's or what?"

"Go fish," replied Stephen. "And I suppose you're right. You know, I _must _be getting paranoid. I swear, even now, I seem to feel the ground shaking a little. And you know where that would leave him down there."

"Ain't been a good quake here for a 'undred years. Your call, mate."

"Um... fours, I guess."

Jimbo winced and reluctantly handed him two of his cards. "Bullocks. I 'ate playin' wit' you."

Down below, Bagheera and Myra were running for their lives through a hall they had trespassed. He knew they were in trouble the instant he felt his foot brush against what seemed to be some sort of trip wire... and they never saw what chased him, but had only heard the loud rumbling of something immeasurably heavy and metallic rolling toward them at speed. They fled back into the main floor, and threw themselves down to the side of the hall entrance.

Bits of rock began to break and fall from the ceiling as the rumbling grew louder, and the loose pieces that were already on the ground began to shake. There was a great clashing noise, and they could only see the blur of some large monstrosity spew out of the hall, taking most of its archway with it, then another loud clash as it smashed itself against a giant chunk of fallen pillar, where it finally halted.

When all the ruckus had faded, and the room fell silent again, Bagheera helped Myra up and they slowly stumbled toward the mysterious instrument. It consisted of three round disks that rolled like wheels, which seemed to be cast out of iron, and each were about seven feet in diameter, and probably weighed a ton. They had sharp, serrated edges and were all attached in the center by a single shaft, crafted together to make one of the most wicked traps Bagheera had thought the Felocians conceived. He gulped as he touched the edge of one of the disks. His fingers were a little shaky. "A simple boulder would have sufficed."

"I think that means they didn't want anyone going in there," said Myra.

They looked at each other and nodded. "Right!"

"Myra, look!"

Above the entrance of the passageway, there was an inscription, half of it which had just been destroyed by the giant slicer. "I didn't see that before, but look at that name! No wonder they set the trap!"

"I can't make it out."

"It says 'Amalatu,'" said Bagheera. "It means Gatekeeper. I think this is it!"

"Then we could have his tomb here?"

"His tomb! My dear, we couldn't ask for anything better! We must be on guard, though... he was one of the minds to designed the contraption that brought the mountains down around this temple, and no doubt that oversized pizza slicer as well. I imagine he gave some consideration to grave robbers."

They trekked into the hall again, and despite Bagheera's eagerness and haste, they were forcibly cautious than their previous attempt through the passage, particularly about where they stepped. There was now plenty of loose rock and three distinct gorge markings on the floor, which had been cut by the giant disks. A ways in, they looked up and could see the shaft in the ceiling that the 'slicer' had rolled down from. Just beyond it, where the floor was no longer broken, the passage swung to the right, and beyond the turn began a descending stairway.

They soon came to a junction in the corridor, where one passage went ahead and the other to the side.

"Which way should we go?" asked Myra.

"We're likely approaching catacombs, and I'm not sure how many ways they'll branch off. From there, though, perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to split up, and cover more ground before we run out of light. If Rhakeith's tomb is here, it's terribly important we find it quickly."

"Sounds like a plan, but try not to get yourself sliced up this time, hm?"

"Oh, hardy har. Good luck! We'll meet back here shortly!"

* * *

Bagheera thoughts obsessed over what he could find down in the depths of the tunnels, but the longer he walked, the less apparent it was that the passage was ever going to end. Soon his legs and feet began an achy protest; the passage was aggravating and repetitive, with not so much as a scratch on the bare walls that was worth interest. It just kept going; he had to have left the vicinity of the temple, and was now somewhere under the buried citadel. He stopped for a minute to wipe the sweat of his brow, and took a brief glance behind him to contemplate how far he had gone. _'All I can say,'_ he thought to himself as he resumed his trek, '_I better not leave this hole in the ground finding a whole lot of nothing... again.' _"-Whoops!"

He stopped and stumbled backwards, finding the ground had suddenly disappeared in front of him. "What in the world..." The passageway abruptly ended and dropped into a pit. He couldn't see the bottom, but what he could see were dozens of sharp, thin spikes, reaching upward from the darkness and longing for an offering to impale.

Bagheera swallowed when he realized how close he'd come to falling on them, and inwardly chided himself for letting down his caution. "That would have been cute indeed."

Shining his flashlight to the other side, he could see that beyond the pit, a wall stood where the corridor merely ended. He looked left, right, down, and even peered into the spikes as best as he could, yet could not spot any other way to follow. "For heaven's sake, a bloody dead end! Confound it, the entire tunnel's a distraction!"

With a tired sigh, he sat down, with the weight of failure down on him and the pressure of lost time against him. They had found soldiers and war relics, art and decor of the ancient temple, and that much would have made most explorers delighted; still, none of that was what he was truly hoping for. His heart was set on a bigger prize.

He sat silently sat against the wall; but when he rested his head against it, it suddenly occurred to him that the bricks he leaned against seemed looser and more brittle than the previous areas of the corridor... like the other side was hollow.

Immediately, he sprang up with a delighted burst of energy and cast his flashlight on the bricks. He couldn't believe he failed to notice it before: the bricks where of a lighter color and smaller size than the rest of the corridor, stacked without adhesive; as such he could tell that there was more to explore on the other side, an area that had been hastily sealed off.

He pushed at the bricks, but they hardly budged, so he began kicking them instead. He kicked until his toes begged for mercy, kicked even harder, and with each blow the bricks became looser and looser, until he forged himself a small hole to crawl through.

On the other side was a vast chamber housing two gigantic bronze statues. Their luster long eroded, each was as tall as a house, and they were warriors crossing spears over an entry, upon which a large a large slab of chiseled granite, apparently meant to seal the room, was left haphazardly leaning. Embossed on the granite were cuneiform letters made of gold that read Rhakeith's name. Elated beyond words, Bagheera ran his fingers over the letters, finding one was loose, and he easily plucked it free.

"This is it," he laughed, "His tomb. And..." Then he frowned. "And who the devil opened it?" With a closer look, Bagheera saw that the granite seal was unblemished; it had not been pried with, it had not been put into place properly. "It was never sealed," he mused. "They never had the time between his death and the invasion."

With some effort, he was able to push the seal just enough to slip inside. There was a short staircase to descend, and beyond that, something that made his fur stand on end: the chamber ahead was well-lit.

"Dear me," he exhaled. The room was in shambles, full of overturned and scattered objects, including scrolls, a rack of ornately crafted war blades, warrior figurines, and statuettes of different animals, made of polished jade and jet. Four baseball-sized white stones hung from the walls in cages, each shining a bright but soft star-like glow that reflected off the relics and saturated the room with a silver hue.

He left his lantern and flashlight at the entrance as he ventured further inside; he could hardly believe his own eyes, but the smile on his face was evidence that the value of this discovery was weighing in... not so much in knowledge and exploration, but in dollars and cents. He pulled a jackknife from his pocket and tried to pry one of the glowing stones out of its cage, but it wouldn't budge; he would have to wait for better tools.

There was a large, foreboding sculpture at the far side of the room; his expression grew a bit more solemn as he approached it. He stood practically eye-to-eye with a dragon, sculpted in gold, bigger than he was tall. Its jaws opened ferociously wide, and everything from its many saber-like fangs, scaly skin, down to the narrow pupils of its ruby eyes were forged with extraordinary precision. It was the only thing left standing upright, was hunched over a golden sarcophagus, one of its clawed hands was set down on top of the casket, posed as if it was holding it shut, and the other hand was outstretched, holding what he recognized as the casing to a Felocian burial tome, not unlike what the air pirates had stolen a year before from the city, except this one, like so much of the decor around it, was of gold and not stone.

"Hello, Sargon," Bagheera murmured, moving in for a closer look. "Oh, you _are _worth a pretty penny, I hope you know." He was mostly fascinated with the dragon's jaws, and how, inanimate as they were, looked able to bite him if he drew too close.

There were pieces of old body armor strewn at the foot of the sarcophagus, which Bagheera assumed must have been the attire of the gent in the box. Upon the shield and the breastplate were inscribed his name, Zul Rhakeith, and on the casket's top as well. Then he looked over the chest in the dragon's hand, and read the inscription on its top face: 'A slave to the lord's soul.'

"Goodness," grinned Bagheera, "Not exactly a popular summer read, are you there." He picked the tome's casing straight up with both hands and began to pry it open immediately... that was when he heard a strange hissing noise, and it was coming from the dragon statue's jaw. It was shortly followed by a strong odor that smelled something like kerosine. It did not take but a jiff for him to realize: "It's a trap!"

He turned and ran, clenching to the golden tome in his arms like a precious child, stumbling over all the scattered relics along the way. Just as he squeezed out of the tomb's entry, he and the door were knocked down by a hot, vicious blast that set the chamber ablaze. A scolding wave of fire passed overhead.

Rolling on his back with his clothes smoking, he discovered he had landed on his lantern and smashed it, but he was fine, and so was the tome, which presently he valued more than his own fur. "Well," he huffed, "that wasn't so bad."

He suddenly yelped when a deafening explosion cracked from the chamber, then an other one, and two more, and the lights inside the tomb were vanquished, leaving him in utter darkness once more. Everything began to shake, cracks races up the outer side of the tomb, and up the ceiling where rubble began to fall.

"_Now _it's bad! Very bad!" He snatched up his flashlight and ran for it, and just narrowly avoided the spike pit again. About half-way from where he had come, the shaking receded, and he dropped to his knees to catch his breath. Behind him, there was no trace of fire, but his flashlight saw an impenetrable pile of rubble and dirt blocking the path to the tomb.

"Mr. Bagheera!"

"M-Myra? Myra!" He had actually forgotten about her being there, but the shine of her lantern rounding the corner was a welcome sight. "Over here! Are you okay?"

"We need to get out of here! There could be another earthquake!"

"No, it wasn't an earthquake," Bagheera tried to explain, "it was... it was... Myra, you should have seen it!"

Not long after, Myra and Bagheera climbed back to the top of the ziggurat, and they could hear their names being called from a distance. It was Stephen. "Uncle! Are you all right? Can you hear me? Myra?"

"We're here!" Myra shouted back; Bagheera's throat felt too scratched and raw to bother trying. "We're coming up now!"

The crew supplied them a rope and hoisted them up, and had plenty to stare at. Bagheera's clothes were still smoking and his jacket was in places charred black as his fur, a sharp contrast to the shiny golden artifact he was holding.

"I didn't know what to think," Stephan said. "We heard an awful noise and-well, thank goodness you're okay!"

"So to speak," wheezed Bagheera . "Just… _*cough*_ a few… _minor_ obstacles." He brushed by them all, hardly even made eye contact as he stumbled outside, where the bright daylight forced him to pause to rub his eyes for a moment.

"What did you bring back?" asked Stephan.

"There's so much more in there!" Myra said, excitedly. But before she could elaborate, Bagheera cut in, hardly unnoticing that his new possession caught many a eye, and aroused many a question:

"Lads, as you can see, we found some things down there, lots of soldiers, lots of old odds and ends. As for what I've brought back, it's pretty as you can see, but I couldn't tell you what it is jut yet. I ask you be patient. First and foremost, we need to get this out of the country as soon as possible. If someone could kindly get a radio signal through, contact Maria in Alpacito and tell her to get a hold of Tyler. And if you all would excuse me, I'm a tad... _parched_."

"But, that's it?" Stephan asked. The entire group was growing a bit indignant over Bagheera's secretive behavior. "Why can't you tell what you have there?"

The elder panther stopped and faced them, mustering a confident grin. "Sorry, lads. All in good time, trust me. But a simple answer to your question, I believe I found..." He dug into his pocket, and tossed the gold cuneiform rune at Stephan, striking the group with astonished expressions. "Proof. Now, rest up! There's more where that came from."

As Bagheera went inside his tent, Myra asked him quietly, "Why so reluctant to share that with them?"

"They're a good bunch," said Bagheera, "but what they don't know might not somehow be mentioned to someone working for Khan."

"Blimey, it's real," said Jimbo, after giving the rune a test-bite to see if it would bend. "What do you suppose he had with him?"

"I don't know," Stephan replied. "But he won't let us down. He's on to something big, you can bet."

* * *

There was a particular plateau on the outskirts of Cape Suzette, near the rises of the famous cliffs that gated the city, where Kit often found to be a quiet place of refuge from an otherwise busy and downright hectic life. Chilled breezes seeped through his sweater as he sat in the shadow of the old, rusted remains of a scrapped Air Force bomber, where from such a spot he overlooked a steep, misty green valley and a narrow lake that wound far back behind the mountains. 'The Graveyard', the area was known as, for there were several old planes just like the bomber scattered throughout the cliffs, long abandoned, left there from the days of the Great War.

Occasionally he threw stones out toward the lake, though at such a height above the water they just seemed to fly and fall until they vanished into thin air. His thoughts drifted over the past couple of months, a series of unfortunate incidents that left Baloo and Rebecca at each others throats more often than ever.

Perhaps it was all a coincidence, as Baloo had always said of it, but Kit had his doubts, and well suspected Baloo and Rebecca did as well. Customers rarely calling in hardly seemed coincidental after losing expensive cargo three times in two weeks to air pirate attacks.

The first incident ended when Baloo "lost" the pirate attackers by using a favorite stunt (and often last resort)... pulling the Sea Duck into a vertical climb, waiting for the pirate planes to climb after it, and releasing the cargo into the air to fall upon them. It wasn't such a _huge _deal when he did it with Fandango mangoes one before, but considering his cargo was thousands of dollars worth of designer clothing and lingerie for "plump" women, it made more than a dent where profits were concerned. (although, at the time Baloo and Kit secretly conceded that seeing a pair of fancy bloomers hitting Don Karnage in the face made it all worthwhile... and then there was the big brassiere cupped over Mad Dog's snout...).

During the second incident, they had been carrying a full load of collectable, hand-crafted porcelain dolls back toward Cape Suzette, where they would be packaged and sold... but when Baloo made one too many dare-devil rolls to disorient the pirate planes, the shattering noises from the cargo hold were probably far more dreadful than Karnage actually stealing anything from them. When Baloo had finally brought the Sea Duck down to look at the damage, Karnage and crew surrounded the plane and boarded... but the captain took one look at the disaster, smacked his forehead, and, as he left, cursed at Baloo for making him waste bullets, fuel, and twenty minutes of his valuable time.

Then the bigger problems started to set in just a few days afterward, when they were to deliver a shipment of antique furniture for a wealthy elderly woman named Petifoot. The Sea Duck was laden with heavy, solid oak dressers and tables, radios, picture frames, and cabinets. Just like the previous incidents, everything was perfectly fine until the pirates showed up. With the plane so heavy, Baloo had no choice that time but to land and let the pirates board. From then it was a matter of being held up at gunpoint until a pirate seaplane big enough to take all the antiques away arrived. Karnage was absolutely giddy at the plunder, and was more than pleased to let Baloo and Kit go unscathed... he had a lot of redecorating to attend to, after all.

Shortly thereafter, Rebecca received notice from the agency that insured the Sea Duck, "regretfully announcing" that the Sea Duck's policy would not cover the lost cargo, and her coverage was thereby terminated due to "high risk of theft." Kit took no understanding of the technical details, things he lately often heard Rebecca argue over the phone about, details of business and finance that he had no interest in. To that extent, perhaps Baloo was right, and for what he really knew there was no matter to be very concerned over. Still, with business being slow, and from what he did understand of Rebecca's matters, that being Higher for Hire had not profited recently, it was hard to mistake that Rebecca was worried.

In all, it was not so much that Higher for Hire had been losing money that bothered Kit, but how Baloo and Rebecca reacted to it... usually unkindly, to say the least.

It was only the week previous that Kit lay awake in his bed late at night, burying his head in his pillow, trying to drown out the angry voices that carried all too clearly up the stairs.

_'Hey, don't even try layin' this on __**me**__, Becky! You're the one who's got the checkbooks! Just 'cuz you can't cut it doesn't have nothin' ta do with me or my flyin', got that?'_

_'Oh, so I guess __**I'm **__to blame for everything, right? Wrong! A business is only as good as its employees, remember that!'_

_'Don't ferget, lady, this __**employee **__was named Best Pilot in the World not too long ago!'_

_'If I remember, that wasn't to be confused with __**patsy**__!'_

_**'Patsy**__? Why I-! If I'm such a darn bad employee, maybe you'd be better off with some other pilot!'_

_'Maybe I would! Don't let __**me **__hold you back!'_

As Kit heard the door slam, he could picture Rebecca's face, tears running down her cheeks. He had never heard them be so cruel to each other, and all about money. It _always_ seemed to be about money.

Baloo eventually lumbered into the bedroom, yawning. He looked over at Kit, who still had his head under his pillow. "You awake, kiddo?" he whispered. He thought of Kit lying there, knowing he _must_ have heard everything, and felt an overwhelming pang of guilt. Kit pretending to be asleep to ignore him only made him feel worse. "Well, if yer awake… I'm real sorry, Li'l Britches."

Baloo and Rebecca had long apologized to each other, but it still bothered him, the thought that there would be a next time.

A sudden gust of wind swept over the cliffs, breaking Kit out of his thoughts. He noticed the sun, warm and high over the sky, and dug his pocket watch from his sweater; he had twenty minutes until eleven o'clock. He started off toward the city hurriedly, thinking Rebecca was liable to have kittens if he made the delivery late.

* * *

Rebecca had long ago abandoned her paperwork (but not the aspirin bottle) and tapped her fingers on her desk, annoyed. It was almost eleven o'clock, the delivery would have be arriving at any moment, and judging by the creaks of the floor heard from upstairs, Baloo had just finally gotten out of bed. Rebecca had just finished acting out the part of a vocal alarm clock.

A truck stopped just outside of Higher for Hire and shut off its engine. Rebecca went to the foot of the stairs and called up at Baloo, "They're here!"

"It ain't eleven yet!" he replied.

"Ooh, that bear," she huffed, not immediately noticing her client coming through the door. "I don't know why the hel-_LLO_ Mr. Borden!"

"Miss Cunningham!" The gray fox tipped his hat to her. "A pleasure to meet you in person. I'm not, um... interrupting anything, am I?"

"No, no, come right in!" She escorted him to the chair in front of her desk. "Can I offer you a glass of water?"

"Oh, no thank you." He sat down, taking a few glances around the room. "And please, call me Tyler."

"Of course!"

"Quite a lovely office you have. It seems very..." he observed Baloo's old lazy chair, "... well, cozy!" He spied a shiny gold trophy standing on a nearby stool, and although he couldn't make out the entire inscription, he could read the larger letters that read the name _Cloud-_something-or-other.

"Our navigator won that," Rebecca explained. "Pretty, isn't it?"

"Well, I must say! I'm confident I've made a wise decision in doing business with you."

"Why, thank you! And please, call _me _Rebecca."

Tyler nodded. "Surely."

"Are things going well at the museum?"

"Oh yes. Quite."

"My pilot will be down in just a moment, he can help load the cargo."

"No need, really. I brought my own gents, they know how to pack and handle our exhibits with care." A loud crash was heard from outside the window, where the movers argued with each over who dropped the crate. Tyler cringed. "Most of the time, anyway. If you'll just have the airplane opened, we'll get down to business."

"Of course, right away!" Rebecca walked Tyler to the door, stopping at the stairs. "Ba-loo," she saing. "Are you ready?"

"Tell 'em to keep their shirts on!" yelled Baloo.

At Tyler's questioning look, Rebecca's face reddened. She forced a toothy smile. "Eh heh, we value a great sense of humor here at Higher for Hire. If you come this way, I'll just open our plane right up for you!"

Outside, Wildcat and Molly sat at the stoop of his houseboat, occupied with his tools, talking to and sorting them. The movers were already crowding the dock with boxes and artifacts of various shapes and sizes. Rebecca had to climb over the wooden crates to get to the Sea Duck.

Tyler was stuck between following her and keeping a worried eye on the movers. "Do be careful with that," he told one, who had a large vase in his hands. Then he spied the other two, carrying a life-size marble statue of a robed figure down the ramp to the dock. "And _especially_ that! That statue's worth more than my house!"

"I haven't had enough coffee for this," Rebecca muttered as she swung her leg over another crate, inadvertently nicking a small bust with her foot, sending it rocking.

Tyler's ears perked up as if he heard the distressed artifact cry for help. He swung around and hopped over a few crates, snatching it just before it fell into the drink. "Whoa there! The bottom of the bay is _not_ a good place for this one."

Rebecca let out a small gasp after realizing what she had done. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see it."

"It's quite all right. Not your fault." He rested the sculpture back on its base, and threw the three movers a contemptuous glance. "It _should_ be packed away in a box, not just left on top to be knocked over."

The three shrugged and continued with their work.

Rebecca looked at it, a marble sculpture of a monkey in beaded jewelry, leering at her. _'Must be one of __**Louie's**__ ancestors,' _she thought. But she attempted to hide her distaste with a bit of feigned interest. "Is that valuable?"

"I should say so," Tyler replied. "The only known likeness of King Chimpanzance the Fourth of Babbolia. It's two thousand years old."

"Oh." Rebecca nodded politely. "How… interesting." She tilted her head, trying to find _something_ redeeming about the ugly thing.

Tyler seemed to pick up on her thoughts, and gave her a look as if pleading for her to understand. "I trudged through _two miles_ of an ancient sewer system, and swung over a pit of _lions_ to find this."

"For _that_?" Rebecca blurted. "Er, I mean…"

Tyler hung his head, but couldn't help but laugh. "I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder, anyway. But I _do_ need your utmost assurance that all of this will be delivered to Port Largo without a scratch."

"Why, of course!" Rebecca finally made it to the Duck's side cargo door and unlocked it. "I can completely assure you that one of Higher For Hire's credits is its smooth flying!" She opened the door and gestured inside, as if presenting the plane for inspection. "As you can see, our cargo area is exceptionally large and-"

"Tyler!" A short cougar in a shirt and tie, damp under the arms, ran towards the dock, waving a piece of paper in his hand. "Tyler!"

"Harold?" Tyler arched an eyebrow, surprised to see that one of his younger associates had ran all the way from the museum to reach him. "What on earth is it?"

Harold stopped and leaned over one of the loaded crates, trying to catch his breath. "We received a telegram-urgent from Alpacito City!"

Tyler's eyes widened. "Alpacito? Bagheera!" Making a long reach over the crates, actually crawling over one, he eagerly swiped the telegram from the cougar's hand, and opened it with the anticipation of a child opening a gift on Christmas day.

"Z-R tome secure… stop," he read aloud. A smile crept across his face. "Stress immediate transportation required, stop." He slowly lowered the note, a peculiar gleam shining in his eye. "Bagheera, I could _kiss_ you."

Rebecca blinked. Somehow the message she overheard didn't sound good for the delivery.

"He found something big, didn't he?" Harold asked Tyler.

"Big things come in small packages, my friend," Tyler replied. "And this…" He shook the note in his hand. "_This_, is about the size of a beachfront mansion on Squeegee!" He waved his arms enthusiastically, and accidentally sent King Chimpanzance into the bay.

Tyler almost whimpered when he heard the splash. He looked back just in time to see the one-time king's white, toothy grin disappear into the cloudy water. "Oh dear. Is that water very deep?"

"I uh, believe so," said Rebecca. Somehow she wasn't _that_ disheartened to see it go.

"Oh well, so what!" Tyler suddenly beamed. He promptly folded the telegram and placed it inside his coat pocket. "We'll call it lost at sea, find it again, and it'll be even _more_ valuable!"

Rebecca was taken aback. No, this _definitely_ didn't sound like it was good for the delivery.

"In any event, I don't have a moment to lose," Tyler declared. Then he called to the movers. "Uh, boys? Sorry, but you're going to have to put all this back in the truck. Take it back! Harold, help them, will you? Thanks."

"_What?_" the three cried in unison.

"_What_?" Rebecca squawked. "But why?"

"I'm sorry," said Tyler, "but I haven't the time for Port Largo right now."

"But-but our deal!" Rebecca stammered.

Oblivious to any upset tone on Rebecca's behalf, Tyler looked like he was ready to dance. "Oh, I assure you, my lady, the contract's still yours. But for now, we have much bigger dealings to discuss!"

"Uh, bigger...?"

"Oh yes. Grander!"

"What exactly _is_... grander?"

"Well, I need a ride."

"A ride."

"Yes, indeed."

"That's grander?"

"It's quite urgent," said Tyler. "I need to retrieve an item from Alpacito and come back as soon as possible. Can I count on you for that?"

"But you signed a contract, and Alpacito is much farther than Port Largo."

"I'll pay you three times as much, if I get there in time."

"_Three _times?"

"Well, I'm not quite sure how you figure in all the-"

"_Deal_!" Rebecca exclaimed. Tyler almost fell backwards. She cleared her throat and continued in a more dignified manner, "When would you like to leave?"

"An hour ago, with all due respect."

"I'll just be one moment," Rebecca said, noticing there was still no sign of Baloo. She rolled up her sleeves and marched back toward Higher for Hire. "Sooner if I can find a frying pan..."

Kit came around the corner, bumping into one of the movers, who was carrying a tall and elaborately feathered headdress back to the truck. Kit could have swore he'd seen Baloo wear something just like it at Louie's before.

One of the movers nearly stepped on his toes. "Watch where you're goin', kid, will ya?"

"Sorry!" said Kit. "What are you guys doing?"

"Dancin' the Flamenco, what's it look like? We're movin' stuff!" He brushed Kit aside, in no keen mood for conversation.

"Aren't you supposed to be moving stuff _inside _the plane?"

"Coming through, kid," huffed a second mover, who, with he and his parnter taking an end each, was carrying a heavy wooden chest.

"What happened to the delivery?" Kit asked them.

"Heck if I know," one replied. "If it means somethin' to ya, talk to the guy in the hat."

Higher for Hire's door was ajar; Kit peeked inside, but saw no one. He went to the guy the 'guy in the hat', who was pacing in a circle at the end of the dock, repeatedly reading with unwavering attention the telegraph he just received.

"Hiya, mister," said Kit. "You know where Baloo and Miz Cunningham went?"

"I do hope they hurry," the fox said absently, checking his wristwatch. He didn't seem to notice Kit, though he was only a few feet away. "We can't linger much longer."

"Mister? You okay?"

"Huh? Why, yes, just in a bit of a rush." Tyler glanced at him, doing a double-take. "Say, I've seen you around. You've dropped by at the museum, haven't you?"

Kit shook his head, but as he looked up at the fox, the ghosts of a dreadful night suddenly sprang forth. Kit stepped back, nearly stumbling over his own feet.

"Wait, by Jove, I _do _remember you!" said Tyler.

"Tea bag?" asked Kit.

"Uh, no. Tyler. Ty-ler."

"Sorry, but... _you're _hiring us?"

"Us? You work here?"

"I'm the navigator."

"Ah! Well, yes then, I am."

Kit glanced around, looking for a particularly looming figure. "Just you?"

"Why, yes-oh. Oh, no no, nothing to do with him anymore. He's gone his own way." The fox smiled, "May I presume you've gone yours, too?"

Kit ducked his head, staring through the spaces between planks on the dock. "Look, I just wanted to know where Baloo was."

"I don't know, lad. If he's doing the flying, I'm wondering the same thing."

"Why are they loading the cargo up in the truck?" Kit asked him. "What are we delivering for you?"

"Canceling that for now."

"Canceled? But Miz Cunningham was counting on that deal."

Tyler looked over Kit's head, and saw Rebecca marching back to the dock, grumbling under her breath, with Baloo swatting her hand away from his ear.

"And if your pilot would be so kind," said Tyler, "_I'm _very much counting on a fast trip to Alpacito City."

Kit scowled at him, his fists were clenched. "It doesn't say _taxi _on the Sea Duck, does it? Ever hear of one of those?"

"Kit!" chided Rebecca.

Baloo came beside him, putting his hand on his shoulder. "Whoa, Li'l Britches, what's wrong?"

"I don't think taxis go that far, my friend," said Tyler. He went to reading his telegram again, not noticing, or at least not minding, Kit's rudeness.

"Well, taxis go pretty far, 'specially when they're chasin' ya," said Wildcat from the stoop of his houseboat. He and Molly sat there sorting his tools, had not been listening to the conversation, but he did picked up a few words here and there. "They're always yelling something about paying for an affair."

Rebecca rubbed her brow, shaking her head. "That's _fare_, Wildcat. Not affair."

"Oh, man, then maybe I shouldn't have told him he'd have to buy me dinner first!"

"That's not what I-oh, never mind!" She turned back to Kit, giving him a stern 'warning' look. "You watch your tone of voice, young man."

Kit brushed passed them, away from the Sea Duck. "I think I'll sit this one out, Baloo."

Baloo scratched his head. "You kiddin'? Why?"

Kit shrugged. "It's not a big deal."

"C'mon, kid, I ain't gonna find this place easy without ya." Concerned, Baloo watched him sweep his feet toward Higher for Hire. He couldn't remember a time when Kit declined to go up flying. "If ya want, I'll let ya start 'er up."

"Thanks, but I dunno. I really don't feel like-"

"Actually, it might be better if Kit _did _stay behind," Rebecca told Baloo. "I think we should have a little _discussion_ about how we speak to very important clients."

Kit stopped dead in his tracks, groaning. Being allowed to start up the Sea Duck himself versus receiving an earful from Rebecca... there were harder choices in the world to be made.

"Sorry, but I _need _my navigator," Baloo said. "We can straighten this whole thing out _later_."

"Well... I suppose," said Rebecca.

Kit brushed past them and headed toward the dock, being sure to mouth to Baloo a quick and covert 'thank you' for getting him out of a sure-to-be lecture. Rocking on his feet, Tyler was having a difficult time standing still, very preoccupied in thought.

* * *

As the Sea Duck flew through the Cape Suzette cliffs, Baloo absently tapped his fingers on the flight stick. The awkward silence in the cockpit made him fidgety. Tyler stood between the pilot and navigator's seats, anxiously staring out the windshield. Kit, meanwhile, seemed to be more interested in the passenger-side window.

Baloo figured it was up to him to break the ice. "All right, kiddo… which way do I turn here to get ta this place?"

Kit reached for a map, but before he could, Tyler interjected, "Just head out about one-six-zero, southeast. Should take us on a direct route."

Baloo glanced at Kit, and if he was at all able to read the boy's expression, it said, '_You want to sit in __**my **__chair_?' Maybe if he had Kit confirm the heading. "Uh, Kit?"

"Sounds right, Baloo," Kit said quietly. "Just listen to him."

Tyler seemed to come out of a daze and realized what he had done. "Oh. Frightfully sorry, didn't mean to step on your toes like that. I just had it in my head."

"It's fine," sighed Kit.

Tyler didn't know what to think of Kit's glum reaction. He gave Baloo a questioning look, as if asking if the boy was _always_ like this. Baloo raised his eyebrows and shook his head, having no explanation.

Tyler straightened his hat and coat, and started to leave the cockpit. "Well, I, uh… I suppose I should find a seat in the back and let you boys do your work."

"Fantastic," Kit replied absently. His face flushed when he realized he said it out loud; he could practically feel the heat of a scolding glare from Baloo.

Tyler looked at Baloo again and shrugged. "Well, anyway, good seeing you again, lad. You blokes let me know when we're close to landing." When he left them alone, a moment or two past between Kit and Baloo in silence. Baloo was obviously trying to think of the right question to begin with, and Kit was expecting it any second, dreading it like one would anticipate a police interrogation.

"So... you know that guy from somewhere?" asked Baloo.

"I don't _know _him," Kit replied, snappily. "I saw him once before."

"You all right, kiddo?"

"Yeah."

"Ya sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"It just don't seem like you've been yerself today," said Baloo. "Now, I guess everybody's entitled to a bad mood every now an' then, but uh… well, is there any perticular reason why you're givin' that guy back there such a hard time?"

Kit sat up like there was something that he had to say, but slouched back in his seat. "No."

Baloo glanced back, making sure Tyler wasn't within earshot. "Becky says this guy's got some money, and even for this taxi service he's payin' pretty well. She gave me one of those 'whatever-he-asks-for' numbers. He seems like a nice guy to me. Don't ya think so?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Well, if ya think so, then why-?" Baloo's question was halted when Kit turned his back to him entirely, leaning on the far armrest with his chin his palm.

"I'll tell him I'm sorry," said Kit. "I'd rather just drop the subject."

"Hey, we're best buds, right?"

"Well, yeah. Why?"

"Well, what are best buds best at 'cept talkin' 'bout things that are botherin' us?"

"Naw, it's an old story," said Kit. "When I said I met Tyler once, it was on the Iron Vulture. I'm not sure I want to talk about it."

Though for as little as he knew, Baloo somehow realized the touchy nature behind his question; Kit had never spoke of his days with the air pirates, nor ever had to, and they had been thus far pleased to leave it at that. "I read ya, kiddo, you don't hafta if you don't wanna. Sometimes it helps, though, ya know, gettin' things off yer chest." From the glum mood that surrounded them, he raised a friendly, encouraging smile. "An' ya can always try me."

Sighing, Kit took off his hat and ran his over his head his hair; his cheeks were warm and he was on the brink of sweating. "When I saw Tyler, it wasn't long before I left the pirates. We'd-_they_, I mean, they'd just pulled a heist off in Alpacito City, where we're going now... and I doubt that's a coincidence. I don't know much about what all went on, though. I stayed in my bunk the whole time. The ship got knocked around pretty good; there was a big thunderstorm, see, and we were right in the middle of it. It was just rocking and shaking, like it was gonna explode. When the heist was over, the lighting ended up doing a number on the engines, so we had to land in the middle of the ocean for repairs. I mean, _they _did."

"S'okay, Lil' Britches. I got ya."

"Well, I guess when the Vulture was down, Tyler and this other guy managed to sneak on board. They must've been following us. They wanted this thing that Karnage stole. It was some sort of old chest. Karnage called it a map, I really don't know _what _it was. But anyway, they pulled it off. I don't know how, but they did it. And that's how I met Tyler."

"So… yer mad at him 'cause he stole somethin' from ol' Karny?"

"'Course not. I could care less about that. And I'm not _mad _at him, I just... I don't know. Just seeing him again out of the blue, it made me feel weird."

"What happened, kid?"

"Well... it's silly. I feel like I'm holding a grudge, and he's not the one who did it."

"Did what...?"

"Well... they made me show 'em where it was, the chest. I wouldn't have done it, but this guy Richter _made me_ tell him where it was…"

"Richter?"

"The one that was with Tyler. Imagine the worst bully you've ever known, big like an army tank, and prob'ly just as strong. He plowed through a lot of pirates, even Dumptruck. Did it with no sweat."

"Sounds big," Baloo said, apparently believing that Kit was exaggerating. "So this fella started a big scuffle with those flea-bitten yahoos?"

"Let's just say he didn't exactly have a soft spot for pirates... any of them."

At that, Baloo's eyes narrowed, somewhat dangerously. "Whaddaya mean? He didn't hurt ya, did he?"

Kit put his hand on his shoulder, remembering how it ached that night. "Yeah," he whispered.

"Gee kid, I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"It's okay. But he got me to tell him where Karnage's loot was I almost got away from him… he picked me up, Baloo, by my throat. And then held me up almost to the ceiling... I couldn't breathe at all. I was scared outta my mind. I think Tyler convinced him to put me down, though."

"But what if Tyler's still hangin' around with this guy?"

"I asked him. He said they don't have anything to do with each other anymore."

"Lucky for him, 'cause I'd hand 'im a parachute." Baloo's meaty paws tightened around the flight stick. "And if you ever see this Richter character again, make sure ya point him out to me… so I can break his neck."

"Aw, forget it. It was a long time ago."

"Wait, _Tyler_ didn't try ta hurt ya, did he? If he did I'll… I'll-!"

"Don't worry, he didn't," said Kit. "He was nice. If it wasn't for him, who knows what would've happened. I think he was even a little worried for me, bein' with the pirates and all. Heck, he offered to take me to an orphanage."

"He did? But ya didn't wanna get outta there?"

Kit didn't answer. He stared out the side window, out where the noon sun poured down across the ocean, setting the dark blue water ablaze with fiery white. In his mind, he heard the voice of Don Karnage, shouting through the Iron Vulture, pursuing the intruders, _'After them! Catch them, you fools!'_

* * *

When things had settled down on the Iron Vulture, the two intruders had escaped with the plundered artifact. Needless to say, the captain was irate. As dawn was soon to break, and not a moment's sleep to be had by the entire crew, Kit had sought solitude from all the commotion in his berth. His shoulder ached as if a nail had been pushed through it, and his throat was bruised and hurt when he coughed. There was a throbbing knot on the side of his head, and he was still having trouble seeing clearly and walking steadily, thanks to the rattling blow he took from Richter. He didn't so much dislike the gray fox, but it was too bad, Kit thought, that Richter got away unharmed. He would have liked to have belted the big brute across his snout, if he wasn't about a dozen times his own size.

Don Karnage was absolutely scandalized, and had called all the pirates together in the galley to find out how someone could break into _his _ship and steal from _him _(for a change). Kit did not bother attending, and did not figure he would be missed, either. Woozily, curled up on his bunk and shut his eyes tight, he wished everything that had happened would be forgotten quickly. He imagined Karnage would just rant until he got too tired to speak, probably thump a few unlucky bystanders, and the whole thing would likely blow over by morning when more plunder opportunities presented themselves.

But that night, such would not be the case...

Ratchet burst through the door. "There you are! The Captain wants to _see _you. Right now!"

"M-me?" This couldn't be good.

Ratchet pulled him by the sweater out in front of him and pushed him along. "Hurry up, runt."

Kit stumbled forward, shaking him off. "Hands off, ya walking flea circus. I'm going!"

But Karnage hadn't waited for him to arrive. Just as Kit was approaching the galley, Karnage stormed out into the adjoining hallway, fuming and pointing at him with accusation. "_Boy_!"

Kit stopped in his tracks and swallowed... it felt as if he was swallowing rocks. Some of the pirates-some of the larger ones, anyway-followed the captain out, and Kit was surrounded. They were all glaring down at him, and he felt like he was shrinking.

"I want answers," demanded Karnage. "What happened?"

"Hap-happened?"

"You were the only one who was with them! How did those imbeciles get in here?"

"I… I don't know," replied Kit. His heart beat furiously, fearfully. Dizziness was washing over him. The floor under his feet seemed to be rolling, rocking back and forth like a rowboat in rough waters.

"Do not be giving me that! Why did you not alert us?"

"Captain, I… I tried! Really! But…!"

"And how did they know where to go? Because _you_ told them, didn't you!"

Kit hesitated to think of some explanation, but he was speechless. He began to realize how much trouble he was in, for no pirate was foolish enough to believe confessing away one of the captain's prized possessions was to be taken lightly... nor was Karnage's unchecked temper.

"_Didn't you_?" asked Karnage again.

Clenching his shoulder, Kit surged enough mettle to defended himself. "Hey, I didn't see anyone _else_ helping out, either! And that one guy was gonna tear my arm off! What was I _supposed_ to do?"

"You ungrateful little fruit fly!" seethed Karnage, stamping his foot. "Am I supposed to be _caring_ about your puny arm? Let him break it off and _beat_ you with it, if he would!" Karnage drew his cutlass and laid the point against Kit's neck. The boy closed his eyes, wishing he had kept his mouth shut and lied instead. Karnage had never drawn his weapon against him before, but he wouldn't actually… Kit saw the fire in the pirate's eyes… would he?

"Miserable little wretch," growled Karnage . "We know what happens to traitors here, do we not?"

Kit didn't answer, but his trembling was clearly evident that he knew exactly what would happen. The blade pressed firmer against his skin. The sear of razor-sharp steel was imminent...

But the captain lowered his cutlass, and grabbed Kit by the chin to make sure the boy was looking dead into his eyes. "Perhaps, my boy, it would be wise _never _to forget that," he hissed.

Kit recoiled from him, fighting back tears. "But I _tried_... don't you believe me?"

Karnage looked away, wiping his hand down his face, and for a moment, his angry expression melted away. "Boy... you _have _to do better than _try_," he said in a low voice.

"He ain't no pirate," someone muttered from the crowd.

"A cry-baby," someone else quietly commented.

Karnage had heard them. It wasn't so much that they were talking about his own protege that riled him. It was not so much that, as he was rearing the boy in all things pirate, he had gladly taken credit for any job the boy had done well, and now was left looking bad. It was that they might have been right.

A smaller pirate with a long white beard happened to lock eyes with him at that moment... unfortunately. "What are _you _looking at?" exploded Karnage, punting the stunted canine across the hall like an oversized beach ball. Everyone else backed away, being sure to give the captain plenty of room to vent. "You are _all _a bunch of filthy, stinking, bone-headed, slack-jawing, toad-sniffing, belly-scratching, helpless, hopeless, spineless, brainless _ingnoranimooses_!"

Then when he paused to catch his breath, he glared down at Kit again, who was the only one who did not cower back.

"And _you_, Kit Cloudkicker, have cost us _all _a great deal tonight! If you do not start shaping up..." His voice became deep and serious, "Some very _terrible _things are going to happen."

Karnage turned around and pushed himself through the crowd. As he did, some of the more bullying pirates like Dumptruck, Ratchet, and Bandit Patch moved in, and aside from the growing hostility in their stare, they looked horrendously pleased to have a chance at the boy.

They were to his left and right, in front of him, and even behind him… and getting closer.

Almost paralyzed with fright, Kit made a plea to the one he trusted most. "C-captain?" Karnage took one small glance back, but pushed down whatever reluctance he felt in leaving, and disappeared from his sight. The pirates that surrounded him suddenly seemed to have grown a lot bigger, like skyscrapers, stretching as it were toward the ceiling. Through his eyes, they were getting blurrier by the second.

Kit clenched his fists, turning in circles at each one of them. His head ached, sweat was falling, and in his already dizzied state, the room began to spin and wave about before his eyes, and grew darker. The last thing he remembered before everything went black was them closing in, closer and closer, and suddenly a blunt pain in the back of his head...

Sometime the next morning, he awoke in his berth, on top of his cot's covers. He did not know all that had happened, exactly, but a new bump on the back of his head likely meant one of the pirates had landed a cheap shot to teach him a lesson.

Kit felt for his pillow and pulled it under his cheek, slowly recollecting the night. "Stinkin' cowards," he murmured as he felt over his bumps. He hated that he let them see him scared. He hated that he let them do the scaring. And then, he remembered the stranger's words: _'There are better places in the world to be...'_

"Better places," he sighed. Despondently, he thought of Karnage walking away, turning his back to him. "Just not for me."

* * *

In the navigator's chair of the Sea Duck, Kit had become quiet suddenly, and was silent for a long moment. Baloo's questions were treading in unfamiliar territory, and he felt perhaps he had crossed the line, though unfortunately he had no idea where that line was drawn. He was about to retract the question and change the subject, when at length Kit shrugged and replied, "The way I saw it, better to be a pirate than a prisoner."

Kit waited for it, the judgement, the expression of disapproval and disappointment. He tried quickly to explain it away, "I know that sounds like I wanted to be there, and I know they're just a bunch of cheap crooks. I don't want you to think that... that..."

Instead, he was met with a gleam in the big bear's eyes. "You turned out all right, kiddo," said Baloo. "Nothin' about them days is ever gonna change a thing between me an' you."

"Yeah." Kit smiled ruefully, and slipped his baseball cap on, backwards as always. "I know."


	2. A stroll through the jungle

**Chapter 2**

**A stroll through the jungle**

A fortunate thing often considered about living in Cape Suzette was the weather, which for most days of the year was warm and sunny, and most particularly about the present time of the year, when spring would soon be melding into summer, the thick fringes of jungle surrounding the city shone crisp shades of green, and the skies were often left pure and cloudless to pleasantly brighten the city streets.

Yet not _everyone _was thrilled with sunshine...

At the heart of the city, amidst a broad cluster tall buildings, stood grim and intimidating the tallest skyscraper in the world, casting a shadow that crept across the town like a great sundial. It was the headquarters of Khan Enterprises, often referred to by the locals simply as "The Tower," where Shere Khan himself spent much of his time commanding his vast corporate empire from the height of his gloomy office, perched dozens of stories into the sky.

At approximately eleven forty-five that morning, Shere Khan visited a walk-in vault located near his main office, with a key and a small slip of paper in his hand. The stainless steel walls consisted almost entirely of drawers, containing personal files, records, and other confidential documents.

He knelt down and unlocked one of the bottom compartments, which was notably larger than the others. When he pulled it open, he read the note he held once more, then set in inside. It was an intercepted copy of the same telegraph Tyler received earlier at Higher For Hire.

Inside that particular compartment were two stone-encased tomes, excavated from the Atronador Basin, one of which Don Karnage had once stolen a year prior from Alpacito City. They rested atop a collection of numerous articles attaining to Felocian history, maps of Alpacatan, and sketches and photographs of city ruins and ancient curios.

Khan reached inside and took out a small box that lay in the back corner. Its wooden exterior was finished to a glossy shine, like a jewelry case. This he took with him before shutting the compartment.

Back in his office, a copy of the corporation's quarterly fiscal report lay on his desk for his review. However, that morning he had other things on his mind. He sat down, resting the wooden case on his lap, and swivelled around to face his massive office window, overlooking the greater part of the city.

Planes of all shapes and sizes whisked though the bright sky, which was a sharp contrast to the dreary darkness inside Khan's unlit office. Far down below, cars and pedestrians cluttered the streets, looking nothing more than scampering ants from his vantage point.

He flipped the top of the wooden box open, where a small, diamond-like stone was nestled in a cushion of soft silk cloth. But this was no ordinary gem... it emitted a soft light that illuminated his amber eyes like smoldering timber.

For most, such an object might provoke amazed expressions, but the tiger's calm, composed face would hardly show indication of such feelings. He held it in his fingertips and silently gazed with rapt fascination. He was as intrigued with it as he was when he purchased it years before.

The intercom on his desk clicked on, and his secretary's voice broke the silence in the room. "Mr. Khan?"

He put the stone back inside its case and shut it, sealing away the light, and turned to face his desk. "Miss Snarly."

"Mr. Richter has arrived."

"Yes, very well. Send him in immediately."

From the far side of the office, Jesse Richter stepped through the heavy double-doors. Against the background lighting, his hulking figure appeared first only as a silhouette, accented by the long, stretching shadow cast at his feet.

"Morning, Mr. Khan," said the grizzly. His attire was among the most vulgar ever to be seen in such a strictly formal setting as Khan's office... he wore green camouflaged fatigues, torn at the left thigh, where bandaging was revealed around his leg. He had his trusty machete strapped to his hip, black combat boots that clapped against the floor like bull hoofs, and a white, sleeveless shirt that unabashedly bared his muscular frame. Khan glanced at him from head to toe, but kept his disapproval to himself. He also noticed a limp that Richter tried to hide with long, confident strides.

"Mr. Richter, you're aware of the missive from Alpacatan, I assume."

"Duly informed, but I'll see that won't be a problem," replied Richter. He stood at the front of the desk, hands behind his back, rocking a bit on his feet; even if he had been offered to sit, he would have refused. There was a quiet energy stirring inside of him that was just waiting to be unleashed on the day ahead.

"Then you can still acquire the artifact?"

"If they've got the Gatekeeper's tome like sounds like, stuff's about to get heavy. I don't think there's a check you can write that'll make Borden turn it loose. It's all about the race, and he wants to finish first just as much as anyone."

Shere Khan leaned back in his chair, folding his hands in his lap. "Then use... persuasion. I'm sure you have that ability, in ample quantities."

"Yeah, I'm a real charmer," said Richter. "You're saying you want me to steal it for you."

"I expect you to _secure _it. As long as your old friends have its information, my control of the situation is substantially limited."

"Just leave it to me," Richter smirked. "This is it, Mr. Khan, the homestretch. Shame on me for letting them take the lead, but if I were you, I'd start sending your fleet out now."

"That will be for me to decide, _after _you've done your part," said Khan. "You'll depart from the airfield as soon as possible. I will be sending you aboard an armed transport with Colonels Jackson and Taylor. I've instructed them to assist you in any way necessary."

"Like the rest of them, they'll be assisting me by keeping out of my way."

"They'll deploy with you on the ground. Taking into consideration your injury, I feel it's better assurance that you not be alone this time."

Richter paused, as if he was expecting much more of an explanation. "But... they're just pilots. You better understand, that jungle isn't a cockpit. And my leg ain't gonna fall off, I'm dealing with it fine. You stick those goons on the ground with me, and I'll be babysitting."

"They have Air Force experience," Khan said. "I'm not yet inclined to send more vessels out, not until you've proven the location of the site."

Richter's eyes glistened with frustration, like the annoyance of a master being being instructed on his craft by an apprentice. "You want assurance, but it's got nothing to do with any injury. You think I might pull out of our deal as soon as I hit paydirt. Well, rest assured, I'm going to get you your precious glowing rocks."

"These are the terms, Mr. Richter. They are not negotiable. Once you've specified the location, I will have reinforcements sent immediately to excavate the site. Until then, I'm certain you can appreciate that I would rather keep this endeavor on the lowest possible profile."

"Certainly," Richter replied, flatly. "Wouldn't want people to think Shere Khan went chasing after a fairy tale."

A cold stare between the two was broken by the black telephone ringing on Khan's desk. Richter took the opportunity to make an unexcused departure, to Khan's irritation.

Khan listened to the message and set the receiver down hard, to catch Richter's attention. "Before you leave, it seems we have information on Mr. Borden that might enhance your search."

"Oh?"

"Would it be of any convenience to you to know what plane he's contracted?"

* * *

A few hours since the Sea Duck departed from Cape Suzette, its destination started to emerge from the edges of the ocean. Tyler had joined the pilot and navigator in the cockpit, standing between the seats.

"Shere Khan offered both of us a fairly handsome sum for our expertise," Tyler explained, answering a question regarding his parting of ways from Richter. "He took a great interest in our work in the Atronador, and for a number of years he's auctioned for several artifacts we've found. I turned him down, for my own reasons. Jesse, I suppose, saw it as a golden ticket, so to speak. So, he works for Khan now, and I help curate of a few museums in Usland and abroad."

"You mean Khan's into that old stuff you guys dig for?" asked Baloo.

"I know, it doesn't sound like him," said Kit. "What _is _so hot about the stuff you guys get from this country, anyway? I mean, Karnage, Khan, you..."

"Well, I haven't the first clue what Don Karnage thought he was going to do. Perhaps he was privy to the market for it, and going to cash in. In the right hands, the clues we find about the old civilization in Alpacatan are priceless."

"Then what _was _that thing you took from the pirates?" asked Kit.

"A clue," grinned Tyler. "Just a little glimpse into the past." As the land drew closer, Tyler pointed to a city on the coast, blanketed by smog. "Look! There it is, Alpacito City. Just land at one of the docks and I'll take care of things from there."

"Huh, this place looks different over here," remarked Kit, referring to the scenery of Alpacatan. Only a narrow strip of sand along the coast separated the clear, blue ocean from the deep green canopy of the Atranador Basin, contrasted further out in the distance by granite mountains, which filled out the horizon with grey, snowy peaks, some smoking with volcanic ash, the highest ones laden with silver clouds that snaked down between the slopes. From their bird's-eye view, they saw how the mountains formed a broad, horseshoe-shaped valley around the jungle; of all things to randomly be reminded of, Kit recalled making a similar shaped dent in the land once on Louie's beach when, during a little joyride not authorized by Baloo, he accidentally plowed the Sea Duck nose-first into the sand.

"Yep, sure does Li'l Britches."

"You've been here before?" Tyler asked.

"We were up just north'a here awhile back," Baloo answered. "Had a few nasty run-ins with some cat and his buzzard."

"Not to mention your _destiny_, O Great Llama," smirked Kit.

"Now don't go startin' _that _again."

Tyler gave them a puzzled look. "Great Llama?"

"Yeah, ol' Papa Bear here got confused with some kind of destined hero."

"Oh, I'm familiar with the legend, Kit. Although, it escapes me how Baloo... of all people..."

"Don't ask," Baloo muttered. Kit laughed.

"I won't then. But that means you've likely heard of the legendary idol! I've been meaning for a long time to try my hand at finding it."

"We _did _find it," said Baloo.

"You did?" asked Tyler. "Well, where is it?"

"Gone," Kit answered.

"Solid," Baloo added with a snap of his fingers.

"Gone? What do you mean...?" When he suddenly realized what they meant, his face fell. "Oh, you didn't..."

"We did," Baloo nodded. "Thing was more trouble than it was worth."

Tyler shook his head and smiled. "Amateurs."

On the foreground of millions of acres of sheer, untamed jungle wilderness, the city of Alpacito stood out like a burning cigar hole on a white rug; in particular, it would have been a very large, sprawling cigar hole. Humid and dusty, it was a vast, overcrowded hub of smoke-churning factories and single-story buildings, streets filled with bicycles, llamas and horses, and flea markets as far as the eye could see. In the northern most section, where the land inclined uphill, there sat a tier of large, wealthy homes. The lowest part of the city was stretched along the coastline; slow moving trucks kicked up dust on pothole-riddled roads connected to neighboring towns afar. A few miles up the coast, a gated army base could be seen on a bluff overlooking the beach; it had the only nearby airfield, off-limits to civilian traffic.

The city bay held a vast marina that was as overcrowded as the streets were, packed with ships of all kinds, from jumbo-sized oil tankers to small rowboats.

"Watch it, Papa Bear," warned Kit, as Baloo cut back the throttle and lowered the flaps. "Fishing boats dead ahead... and everywhere else."

"I see 'em, kiddo." Baloo spied a large enough gap between the many boats crowding the bay and gently touched the plane down. Smaller boats rocked in its wake as it glided across the water. "Hoo-hoo, baby... all these people and ain't another plane in sight. That's just wrong!"

As the plane slowed, Kit helped him keep a lookout for any vessels they might collide with. "I don't think I've ever seen so many ships in one place before."

"Well, fishing _is _a large industry here," Tyler explained. "You see, there must be hundreds of-"

"Two o'clock!" Kit suddenly shouted. A speedboat darted around a large tanker and sped head-on towards the Sea Duck. "Look out!"

Baloo and the speedboat driver seem to notice each other at the same time, and too late. "What'n the-! Hold tight!" Quickly, he punched the left engine's throttle to full power, and threw the flight stick and rudder full tilt to the right. The Sea Duck swivelled to an abrupt stop.

The speedboat evaded to the right, barely missing nicking the Sea Duck's tail, and fled out of sight. "Lousy Sunday boater!" Baloo yelled out his window. "Man... everyone okay?"

"Sure, I'm okay," Kit replied, re-adjusting his seatbelt.

Baloo then turned around, seeing no one. "Tyler?"

A low moan came from the floor. Woozy, Tyler picked himself off the floor. "Yes, I'm fine... I think." He grabbed onto Kit's chair for support and blinked. "Should we just look for a place to park now?"

Baloo taxied further into the bay, and moored at the nearest empty dock they spotted. Tyler was the first to stumble out of the plane, apparently still a bit dizzy. Baloo and Kit stepped out just behind him, where they were approached by a short, frizzle-haired bobcat, who was yelling at them indignantly in Spanish.

"What flew up this guy's tailpipe?" asked Baloo. Kit and Tyler shrugged. "Uh, problem-o, mister?"

Apparently, there was a problem indeed, and the bobcat, waving his arms excitedly, explained what it was. Unfortunately, his Spanish was not getting through.

"You understand what this guy's sayin'?" Baloo asked Tyler.

"Well, hardly," he replied, scratching his cheek as he thought about it. "Something about this dock..."

The bobcat stepped right in front of Tyler with his chest puffed out, then began weaving between him and Baloo, prattling on furiously, and seemed to not be able to help but to invading their personal space, because he was bumping into them as he did.

"Good grief," moaned Tyler. "Is the _hospital _missing a patient?"

Kit walked off the dock, watching the bobcat carefully, particularly his hands, while Baloo and Tyler became more and more frustrated at his crazy behavior.

"Aw, let's just go," said Baloo. "What's he gonna do?"

"I agree-oof!" yelped Tyler, as the bobcat nudged his shoulder into his hip. "What on earth is _wrong _with you? Go away!"

To their relief, the bobcat began to walk away and finally shut his mouth, except to stick his tongue out at them. Baloo and Tyler regarded him with dumbfounded expressions. "Sorry, Baloo," muttered Tyler. "Welcome to Alpacito."

"Huh, you don't say," chuckled Baloo half-heartedly.

Before the bobcat left, Kit made it a point to get in his way and brush into him. The bobcat glared at him like he was the stupidest child he had ever seen, then he rushed away and disappeared into the outdoor markets.

"What was that all about?" asked Baloo.

Kit handed Tyler his wallet back. "Here, he lifted this off you."

"Why... I never," blinked Tyler. "How did _that _happen?"

"He just made a distraction by running into you," said Kit. "Oldest trick in the book."

"Hey, good eye, kid," said Baloo.

Tyler sighed and stuffed his wallet in his front pant pocket where he would be better apt to keep watch over it. "I don't want to ask how you know that well enough to have gotten it back for me, but just the same, thank you. Now..." Tyler adjusted his fedora and started off. "Just follow me, fellows, the office is a little ways from here. We'll get ourselves situated there."

The street they were on was covered with vendor tents and booths selling everything from fish to to rugs to told fortunes. Here and there, musicians strummed local folk-music in hopes their offering buckets would be filled. Those who weren't buying and selling loitered around the trash cans and street light posts, eyeing the crowd for any interesting prospects. It was a perfect place for crafty swindlers and pickpockets alike, despite having armed military sentries that stood on the street corners and roamed through the marketplaces. A heavy and loud-chugging Thembrian tank was prominently seen above head and shoulders, slowly crawling across the edge of the marketplace.

"Some place, huh Baloo?"

"You said it," he replied. "Just make sure ya stick close. If there ain't a lot of characters runnin' 'round here..."

"There are typically three types of people on these streets," Tyler said. "Those selling something, those stealing something, and those doing both. Which reminds me, if you can help it... don't make eye contact with anyone."

Around the corner and a long walk further into the downtown district, where the streets were better paved and more prominent businesses like restaurants, banks, and hotels resided, they followed Tyler inside a large museum. "Here we are, guys."

"_Finally_," complained Baloo, whose feet were about as happy as a paw in a beartrap.

Inside, an attractive young lioness sat behind the front desk filing her nails. She smiled at Tyler as he walked in. "_Buenos d__í__as,_ cutie."

"Hello, Maria. How's things?"

"You no miss much." She then spotted the two bears, most noticeably the husky gray one. "Hey, what's _your_ name, _pop__í_?" She winked, then clicked her tongue.

"Who... _me_?"

Kit put his hand up to his mouth, snickering at Baloo's bewildered expression.

Tyler introduced them: "This is Baloo, and this young man is Kit. They flew me over here. Gents, this is the receptionist, Maria."

"Oooh, a pilot! How ver_rr_y interesting."

Baloo's face turned red. "Uh, well, uh... thanks."

"Oh, cool off for a minute," Tyler told her. "Is there any more word from Bagheera? I thought he'd be here by now."

"Ah, sí! Señor Bagheera radio-ed in just half hour ago. He say he no come here, and that you should meet him at _Leoki_."

"Le-whaty?" Baloo asked.

"Leoki," said Tyler . "It's a tribal village a bit farther into the jungle. The villagers know us and let us camp there when we have need."

"You mean ya have what ya wanted ta get right here?"

"Well..." Tyler rubbed the back of his neck, uneasily. "I thought we _would_... I don't suppose you boys would like to join me on um... a little stroll?"

Baloo crossed his arms. "How 'little' are we talkin' here?"

"Oh, not far... a few miles, give or take... a dozen more."

"In that _jungle_?" Baloo's feet hurt just thinking about it. "I don't think so!"

"You look tired, _pop__í_," said Marie. "Who need jungle? You have siesta at my hacienda! There plenty room!"

"_Down_, Maria," chided Tyler. "Come now, Baloo, it's not that bad. We'll take llamas to ride... they're very comfortable."

"Why can't yer pal meet ya here?" asked Baloo.

"Apparently he can't make it into the city," Tyler explained. "I can't offer details, but Leoki is a contingency plan."

"An' I can't _fly _there ya there?"

"Not unless you can land on top of a tree, which I highly doubt is-" Tyler paused, taken aback, as Baloo suddenly beamed with an audacious grin. "_Llamas_, Baloo. Very nice, safe llamas."

"Maybe we better," Kit said, aside to Baloo. "Miz Cunningham said whatever he needed."

"What, and miss out on all the beautiful local color out there?" Baloo gestured to the window, where to his chagrin, a small herd of noisy gorilla birds ran wildly across the sidewalk, with a frantic shepherd chasing and calling after them. "Or maybe we could stay inside."

"Oh, _pop__í_, you come sit next to me!" Maria offered. "Tell me all about how _pilot _is."

"Uh, I uh," stammered Baloo, grinning a nervous but awkwardly polite no-thanks. "I think the kid's right. We're here to help!"

"You do that to everyone," said Tyler, aside to the receptionist. "You could lose visitors!"

"_A contrario_!" Maria pointed to, with no small boast in her countenance, the guest book on the corner of her desk, open and filled to the brim with names. Perhaps a coincidence, they were all men's names. "They keep coming back."

Tyler waved her off, and brought Kit and Baloo to a closet near a staircase, where he was soon rummaging waist-deep through the clutter inside. "Now, let me see... canteens... ah! Here's an umbrella!"

He handed the umbrella to Baloo, who could hardly help but notice through the windows that the sunshine was in ample quantity. "What's this for?" Tyler didn't hear him, as he searched around the closet. Baloo tapped him on the shoulder, and pointed out the window when he got his attention. "How do ya think this'll come handy?"

"By golly, it might not, at that," Tyler replied. He put back away the umbrella, and instead shoved a wadded-up ball of raincoats into Baloo's arms. "You never know around here, one minute all's well, the next it's raining cats and dogs. Kit, right up these stairs, first door on your left. There should be some knapsacks on a table. Be a sport and bring us down one, will you?"

"Sure!" Kit ran up the stairs, while Baloo plopped down on the second step, muttering about the sudden luggage he was handed, and wondering what cold, soaked, rainy misery he was getting roped into.

"That kid's more hyper than a jackrabbit that just sat in a puddle'a turpentine," he remarked.

"I was like that when I was his age," said Tyler. "Weren't you?"

Baloo looked at the ceiling thoughtfully for a few seconds. "Nope."

"How old is he, anyway?"

"Twelve." With a grin, he added, "Too young to fly and too old to like hearin' about it."

Tyler nodded. "My oldest nephew's twelve, and he's starting to realize that somehow he has control of the entire universe, much to his mum and dad's chargin. Well, chap, I'd invite you to look around, but I doubt you'd have time too see much before we're off."

"Yeah, ain't that a shame," Baloo drawled, scanning the place. He was probably the last person on earth to have much of an appreciation for such exhibits: paintings, statues great and small, vases, rows of glass cases holding everything from carved jewelry to ancient parchments... and a receptionist who winked at him every time they made eye contact. "So, you a regular 'round here?"

"You could say that," replied Tyler. "I keep on the good side of the local officials here, with the understanding I turn over anything I find in the country over to them, and at times this museum has been a home away from home. If I may boast, nearly half of everything here was recovered with my hand involved."

Tyler leaned his elbow on the banister, glancing at the various artifacts. "It's a pity, though. With a wealth of history in its backyard, this city could house one of the most prestigious museums in the world."

"'Prestigious' ain't 'xactly what I'd call this place."

"I know, I know. All those sentries with rifles in thier hands aren't for decoration. They're not what you'd call lenient, either, almost anything can earn you a good flogging at the least. They've tried to fancy things up here and there, resorts by the beaches and such, but the city's gone to the dogs, crime is everywhere, no tourism..."

Maria cleared her throat loudly, pointing again to her guest book.

"I stand corrected," said Tyler. "We still have one popular attraction."

Kit came back to the head of the stairs, knapsack in hand. "This what you want?"

"That's it," said Tyler, and he checked his watch. "It's going to be an hour's ride. Let's hit the road!"

"Oh meester Ty-ler," sang Maria. "I have something else for you! Señor Bagheera says he has a friend."

"Who?"

Maria answered with her signature wink and tongue-click.

Kit and Baloo shrugged at each other as Tyler's jaw seemingly became unhinged. "My-Myra? Myra is _here_?"

"I thought you maybe should know."

Tyler suddenly began to look himself over, from shoulders to toe. "Oh dear, oh dear. Scruffy shoes, dusty pant legs, I look awful!"

The name sounded familiar to Baloo. As he looked around the room and everything archeological within it, a recent adventure with Wildcat in an upside-down pyramid sprang to mind. "The gal from Aridia?"

"_You _know her? How?"

"Long story," Baloo said. "Delivered a stone tablet to 'er once, ended up gettin' chased by pirates and a crazy mummy!"

"Mummies and pyramids," nodded Tyler. "That's her, all right."

"Yep, she's a handful."

"Handful? What is _that _supposed to mean?" In a beat, Tyler had his finger against Baloo's chest. "Exactly how _well _did you get to know her?"

"Hey, easy! Wasn't nothin' like that."

Maria watched on, chin cupped in her hands. "Ooh, the jealous type. R_rr_omantic!"

"Jeal-absurd," Tyler protested. "I'll have you know my relationship with Myra is strictly professional!"

"I know what I seen before," she replied. "You got for her-how you say-the hots."

"Not in front of the lad," hissed Tyler. Kit turned away, rolling his eyes. He spied an exhibit of swords and went to go check that out. "I've had a _mild infatuation _with her before, but I'm adult enough to handle it." Feeling all eyes on him, Tyler Tylers voice cracked and faltered. He grabbed Baloo by the shirt and pleaded with him. "No, I can't. Will you help me?"

"Help? How?"

"Well, mummy and all, you must be familiar enough to talk to her. Keep a conversation going! I stutter like a blithering idiot when I talk to her!"

Baloo elbowed him away, a knowing eyebrow raised. "Twitterpated."

"A little," said Tyler, hanging his head. "The last time I saw her, I took her to dinner in Pango-Pango. I don't know what I ate, but it didn't stay down before we had left the table." He cringed, wringing his fingers together. "I haven't had the courage to say two words to her since."

"I know all about twitterpate, _popi_," Maria said to Baloo. "But you could show me what you know, _sí_?"

With a gulp, Baloo fidgeted with his cap, pretending not to have heard that. "G-good ol' Myra, huh? I'll be right behind ya, Tyler."

* * *

On the outskirts of town, Tyler rented three llamas. Baloo required the biggest and strongest steed available for his bulk, which unfortunately for him, also happened to be the most stubborn. The three were not quite into the jungle before it was evident that the ride would not go smoothly for the big guy.

"Hey! Cut it out!" Baloo yelled. Every other step his llama took, it would sway as if to knock him off its back.

Kit and Tyler rode ahead of him, side by side, shaking their heads at the scene behind them. "Show the llama kindness, Baloo," said Tyler. "It's the only way you're going to get along with it."

"_Kindness_? I'd like to show this long-haired packin' mule a taxidermist!"

"He never was any good with animals," Kit said to Tyler.

"So I see."

Thunder clashed in the distance, capturing Kit's attention. The once silver clouds on the peaks of the mountain were now dark gray, thick and angry with rain and wind. Sharing the same namesake as the jungle, the vast, towering ranges were known as the Atronador Heights, an informal mix of their Spanish and English names, respectively: Las Alturas Atronadoras, or, the Thundering Heights. Regardless of the translation, it was roughly the same given by the ancient Felocians thousands of years prior, and for exactly the same reason.

"You were right about taking those raincoats," Kit said. "I sure hope we don't need 'em."

"That's the Atronador for you," said Tyler. "The land has a temperament all its own. We won't have much to worry about, I don't think. We're not going that far, anyway. It's when we _do _have need to explore further inside that it becomes a hexing task. Down here in the basin you have thunder, lightning, hailstorms, dangerous animals, the works. Then up in the mountains it gets even better. Blizzards, avalanches, and temperatures that could make Thembria look like a day at the beach."

"If people are still living in villages out there, it can't all be that bad, right?"

"Well, I imagine if you've lived here your entire life, you could gain a resilience that a tenderfoot like me lacks," said Tyler. "The city and towns usually fair well, though; its the deep jungle where things get truly bitter, and not many live far from the coast anymore. The village we're heading to is one of only a remaining few."

They kept on a narrow trail that was soon overwhelmed by trees and ferns on either side. White and orange butterflies fluttered about the leaves, splashing the monotonous green surroundings with bits of vibrant color. Loquacious birds chirped in the branches, jubilantly, as if cheering the three strangers riding into their territory like a street parade.

"Take a look over there, chaps." Tyler pointed to their left, where through the trees they could see the ruins of a tower, rising over the tall foliage. "That used to be one of several watchtowers that overlooked the ocean. It's only a stump compared to how high it originally was. The Felocians did, that one about five thousand years ago. This jungle holds some of the oldest structures in the world, which is quite remarkable if you consider the history of earthquakes in the area."

Behind them, Baloo continued to yell at and insult at his llama, never taking notice to what Tyler said.

"_Kindness_, Baloo," Tyler chided him. "Be _nice_ to it."

"I got yer 'nice' right here, pal," Baloo grumbled, holding onto the llama's wool to keep from falling off.

"He'll never learn," sighed Kit. "Then this is what you guys do, come out here and look at old buildings?"

Tyler laughed. "You make it sound so complicated! But actually, yes, we do. Mostly, though, we take what artifacts we can out of the jungle for the world to see."

Up ahead, the path curved around a raised stone platform with a blackened iron sculpture; while heavily weathered it resembled a four-clawed talon, broken at the wrist from what would have been the rest of the statue. There were three more platforms set around the path, positioned as pedestals for a giant four-legged creature. "That foot over there would be a piece of Felocian god, Sargon," said Tyler. "A very unpleasant bloke. He was the manifestation of the jungle's ferocity, no doubt brought about by the many lovely creatures who make their home here. If you've ever seen an Atronador varan, for instance, you'd have some idea. Big, poisonous lizards that feed like great white sharks.

"Sargon's likeness is all over Felocian art, a fantastically gruesome-looking demon. In their mythology, he was a spirit of chaos, who was said to be jealous of the beauty and harmony of life, and introduced death, chaos, and destruction into the world. He was the archenemy of Seren, the benevolent goddess of the earth and all things living on it, and at the end they fought a terrible on this very land, where Seren ultimately banished Sargon to an eternal abyss, though Sargon left a permanent scar on the world, everything from thunderstorms to snake venom.

"I'm not sure what Seren would have looked like... never found an image of her. References to her were nearly obliterated by the last Felocian king... that chap had a dark obsession with ruthlessness, and took quite a liking to Sargon's style, and built plenty of monumental shrines in his honor. That sculpture would have been one; I wish that it were still intact, what a sight it must have been back in the day to travelers, the dark god's outstretched wings flared and shading this old path!"

Baloo, fussing with his llama, was fast in his own miserable world, while the gray fox absently prattled on about how the jungle once looked in the development of the ancient empire. For Kit, as perhaps typical of a twelve-year-old boy's mind, he only retained a few certain words: "What about poisonous lizard sharks?" he asked. Come to think of it, there might have been a comic book about those.

"Varans, yes," said Tyler. "Nasty business, those lizards, but fortunately they keep much further inland. Now, where was I...?"

Apparent by now to Kit, Tyler Borden loved to talk. Perhaps not so much on the social scales, but as a natural born lecturer, and at the moment he had a fresh, young set of ears of with to share his wealth of historical knowledge. And he did, more and more as their three-man caravan passed near old ruins, taking no heed to the difference between a listening audience and polite silence, where the impolite and more desirable alternative would have told the fox to, in no uncertain terms, shut his big yap already.

As they rode on a little further, Kit began to think of the strange stone case that Don Karange had stolen a time before, and asked about it once he got a word in edgewise. "Say, what did you guys take from the pirates that night? I remember Karnage calling it a map, but for what?"

"Well, we call them _tomes_, bound parchments buried with the high-ranking and royal ancients that accounted for their life's deeds accomplishments, to have available in the afterlife. We've only found six, most not in very good condition, but they've been remarkable tools in piecing infomation together about the world in that day. Particularly, we hoped that what we took from the Iron Vulture would give us enough information to reveal the whereabouts of a very special place. Have you ever heard or read of the name Rhamastan?"

Kit shook his head. "Nuh-uh."

"Allow me to elaborate, then. You see, ages ago, this land was known as Felocia, and its people built an absolutely _remarkable _civilization, a kingdom spread throughout the greater part of the basin." Tyler pointed back at the watchtower ruins. "What you saw over there is just a smidgen of what was once here."

"Okay, big cities. Gotcha."

Tyler went on, this time gesturing to their entire surroundings, "Citadels, ziggurats, forums, and aqueducts, if you dig deep enough anywhere you'll likely find something. But the one thing we haven't found is the citadel that housed the tombs of the kings and all their wealth. That would be Rhamastan, an underground stronghold hidden from the face of the earth. What mention of it that has survived has been brushed off my most scholars as a fairy tale. I can't wait to see the look on their frowning faces when we finally bring the bugger to light."

"There'd be lots of treasure in there?"

"If by lots, you mean an entire nation's worth," Tyler replied.

"Trea-sure?" Baloo took a brief pause in arguing with his llama and finally paid Tyler a two seconds worth of interest. "You guy's 're talkin' about my two favorite things!"

"A nation's worth, huh?" A thoughtful look crossed Kit's face as he contemplated an idea or two. "Why do they say it's a fairy tale?"

"It's all what you pick out as myth or reality," said Tyler. "Rhamastan is said to have fallen from the heavens at the beginning of history. It had thriving gardens that could sustain the entire kingdom, it boasted of shimmering, bejewelled halls as far as the eye could see, and everywhere, an everlasting light, while never touched by the sun or moon. As the royal cemetery, it was a vision of a paradise, heaven on earth if you will."

"What's the _real _part?"

Tyler glanced at him from the corner of his eye, smirking. "Why, I just told you."

Kit started at him blankly, expecting more of an explanation, and to Tyler, ready to, if not eager to, proudly tell the tale of his life's work and knowledge, the boy was a fish who just bit the lure.

"A years ago, back when I had just begun my interest in the matter, hikers stumbled upon a crystal the size of a golf ball on the slopes of the mountains, and it shined light, quite bright. I saw it myself, but I couldn't convince the finders to sell it to me. But that was it, at that moment, we knew what was thought of as impossible was not. Felocian legend told of a mineral called firestone, and that was it, the type of crystal that gave Rhamastan an everlasting light!"

Kit took a quick look behind him to check on Baloo, seeing the big gray bear now had his arms around the llama's neck to keep from falling off. "Now listen," Baloo was saying to his steed. "Let's be rational, 'kay? You don't like me, and I don't like you... but let's try ta get through this trip, huh?" The llama only snorted in reply.

"Where's this crystal now?"

"Unfortunately, like so many other things in the city, it was stolen. The next thing to come around was that Shere Khan somehow acquired it up-and by that I mean I'm certain he was the one who financed its theft-but that rumor was quickly denied and off-limits for anyone in his company to talk about, and before I knew it, no one ever spoke of it again. No one claimed it was ever found. Khan locked it away and shut everyone up about it."

"Why would someone just want to hide it? Seems if anyone's interested, that'd be a neat collector's item to show off."

"Bright lad, my thoughts exactly. That crystal was proof, and everything we ever needed to launch a well-funded expedition for Rhamastan. Trust me, I tried following up on what Khan did with it, but I only heard the sketchiest of details. It seems he was trying to research the stone to find what made it luminous. I'm no scientist, though. My point is, crystals like that, on the scale of hundreds and thousands, embedded in caverns, the legend becomes quite real. And, firestone's not the only special substance associated with Rhamastan."

From underneath his open-collared shirt, Tyler pulled out a necklace that hung a flat, weathered golden ornament with the engraved facial image of a reptilian beast with four horns jutting from his crown. "They found gold."

Kit's ears perked up in piqued interest. "Gold?"

"They've been mining the mountains around here for a century, not a lick of it to be found. But many of the Felocian relics are pure gold. It was a sacred metal to them, and, they had such an abundance of it, we have hints of them using it in construction in Rhamastan. And I emphasize when I use the word 'abundance', if you take my meaning."

"Wait, you're saying...?"

"A city made of gold," Tyler said, smiling, as he tucked his necklace back under his shirt. "I'm not sure we could fathom how magnificent it must look without seeing it in person. And goodness knows what else they might have made out of gold... anything's possible. Really, it'd be a treasure hunter's dream come true."

"Wow. Baloo, are you listening to any of this?" Kit asked.

"Huh? Yeah, sure Kit," Baloo lied. Somehow he had ended up riding sidesaddle by now.

Distant thunder beckoned from the mountains again. Through the trees, Kit watched the gray, dreary clouds spread surprisingly fast over the snow-covered mountains, where looming shadows flooding the still, rocky slopes silently spoke of the daunting task that awaited those who came too close, and imagining of what awaited gave him goose bumps.

"So, just out of curiosity," Kit said, "how long do you think it'd take you to actually go looking for this place?"

"Oh, perhaps a week," replied Tyler. "I'd like to properly prepare."

"A week, huh?" Kit quietly repeated to himself. He was quite pleased with that answer.

"I'd love to start today, but caution takes precidence. The gates of Rhamastan could be buried under fifty feet of ice up in the mountains, for all we know. And it's not the type of place you'd want to search around for very long. In any event, I'll know soon enough."

Kit would have rubbed his hands together if it wouldn't have been so conspicuous. '_That makes __**two **__of us_,' he thought.

* * *

The three were following their trail onward through the jungle when Tyler spotted chimney smoke rising above the treetops ahead. "Leoki should be coming about any minute now."

Kit nodded. "Good. I hate to tell ya, but these llamas aren't exactly as comfortable as you said."

"I suppose they do take some getting used to, don't they."

"A few pillows wouldn't hurt, either. Wait a minute..." Kit suddenly realized he hadn't heard any grumbling from behind them for several minutes. When he looked back, he saw no one. "Where'd Baloo go?"

"Baloo?" Tyler turned his head. "Why, I don't know."

"Baloo!" Kit called out. "Where are you?"

Just then, a small boy, a lion cub, pounced from a bush in front of their path, startling the llamas. He snarled at Kit and Tyler, holding up a spear to them, which was twice his own length and too heavy for him to handle without strain.

"Whoa-ho there, little one," Tyler said, half chuckling, but also cautious of the sharp, jagged stone being pointed at him. "Easy now. We're _friends_."

"Yeah, take it easy," said Kit. If there was one thing more surprising than seeing someone younger than himself in the middle of the jungle, it was being attacked by him.

The lion cub, however, only growled and jabbed his spear in their direction. Apparently he was not much for diplomacy.

"Don't think he understands us," said Kit.

"Let's see if I can remember this," Tyler mumbled. He put his left fist against his right palm and bowed his head slightly at the boy, but then hesitated as he was about to say something. "I always get the proper greeting confused with a similar sounding phrase that means 'vile pig.'"

An older lion, likely the young cub's father, came through the trees, and recognized the gray fox. "Ah, Ty-lar!"

The cub stared suspiciously at Tyler for a moment, then at Kit... then lowered his spear, pouting. So much for fending off intruders.

Tyler gestured the same greeting again. "Hello there!"

After returning the greeting, the man snatched the spear out of his boy's hands, gave him a brief scolding in his own language, and sent him scampering back to the village. Then he motioned for them to follow him, speaking kindly in an indistinct mixture of broken English and Felocian dialect.

Kit ignored him and scanned the jungle, sighing apprehensively. "Look, I'm getting worried. I gotta go back and find Baloo." But to his relief, he heard a familiar griping approach from behind. "Baloo? Is that you?"

"I'm comin'!" Soon they watched as his llama strolled out of the foliage, its passenger riding backwards on his saddle.

"Baloo, how on earth..." said Tyler.

Baloo didn't answer. He just rolled off his llama, falling belly-first on the ground. The llama snorted with much relief. "All I'm gonna say is that thing is _evil_." He slowly rose to his feet, rubbing his backside. "We'll take llamas to ride," he mimicked. "They're very comfortable."

"Well, Kit and I are fine."

"Oh, I'm _real_ happy for ya. I'll walk from here, thanks." He started off, holding his steed by the reins, but it stubbornly planted its feet into the ground and refused to follow him. "And _it_ can stay here for all I care!"

The native lion shook his head at him and approached his llama. "Teska te riest," he told Baloo, which translated, meant 'show the llama kindness. He placed his hand on the llama's neck and led it off towards the village. Kit and Tyler' followed.

Baloo brought up the rear, scratching the back of his head. "Now how'd he do that?"

Bagheera greeted them as they arrived at the edge of the village. "Tyler! There you are."

"Good to see you, Bagheera." Tyler dismounted his llama and shook the panther's hand. "_Especially_ today."

Suddenly, several rounds of gun fire blasted through the trees. Startled, Kit and Baloo jumped and the llamas fussed.

Tyler shut his eyes and let out a long sigh. "That's them, I take it."

"The chief says they've been at it all bloody day," replied Bagheera. "They nearly caught me off guard."

"You mind tellin' us what's goin' on?" asked Baloo.

"Are these companions of yours?" Bagheera asked Tyler.

"This is Kit, and that fellow is Baloo," he said. "They're my round-trip ticket."

Bagheera nodded to both bears. "Ah. Well, hello, fellows."

"Yeah yeah, hello," said Baloo. "Now who's shootin'? An' at what?"

"Alpacatan patrols," Tyler began to explain. "They want to inspect artifacts we find in the jungle..." But just then, two soldiers stepped out from the trees, each with a rifle slung around their shoulders and an unmistakable scent of alcohol about them. They were laughing and heartily greeted Tyler by name when they saw him. From there, Tyler and Bagheera forced themselves to smile and made broken small-talk through a language barrier. The soldiers then sauntered away toward the village, pleased, sleepy, and drunk.

"Fortunately, I brought enough things from the excavation to satiate their curiousity," Bagheera said aside to Tyler, once the soliders were out of earshot. "They have no idea about the tome." Baloo and Kit followed them into the village, shrugging 'who knows?' at each other.

The village of Leoki sat on a firm, rocky clearing near one of the jungle's lesser lakes. It mostly consisted of a large cluster of huts made of mortar, stone, and lumber, and pens where chickens and pigs were fenced. Children ran and played about in the open, while the rest were engaged in everyday tasks, from cooking, roof repair, to spear sharpening. Several villagers with llamas were loading their steeds with sacks full of crafts, preparing a caravan of trading goods destined for the city. From time to time, Bagheera and Tyler made arrangements with the village chieftain to smuggle certain finds with the caravan, for prying eyes guarding the city were rarely interested in aboriginal crafts.

Everyone in the village seemed to have a job to do, and no one seemed interested in the visiting soldiers, who had gone to nap behind the shade of a hut. Nor did they pay much attention, at first glance, to their foreign guests, with exception of the curious children. They seemed particularly fascinated with Baloo, talking amongst themselves and making rotund gestures around their bellies.

Baloo groaned. "Somethin' tells me I shoulda took my chances with that Maria gal."

At that, Tyler perked up and began to scan the many faces of the village folk. "I nearly forgot. Bagheera, where _is _she?"

"Myra and the team are back at Amakhan," Bagheera replied, and with some relief and disappointment, Tyler sighed like he was holding his breath for hours. "Sorry, I take it that much didn't get through to Maria," said Bagheera.

"No, no, but that's okay, I'm in no hurry to say hello," said Tyler. "But where's that little prize at, eh?"

"Yes, we need to speak about that. But _alone_, if you don't mind." Then Bagheera said to the other two, "Uh, Baloo? Kit? I'm sure you two are a trifle tired after your trip, and it's about lunch time here. The villagers are very hospitable, I know they'll love it if you sat down and joined them for a bit."

"Lunch, huh?" Baloo brightened and helped Kit down off his llama. "C'mon, Li'l Britches, lets see what kinda 'gourmet' they serve out here."

Bagheera eagerly motioned for Tyler to follow him. "Right, just make yourselves at home."

Curiousity was nagging at Kit's thoughts as he watched the two walked away, whispering. "Naw, I'll pass, Baloo... I'm gonna take a look around."

"Well, suit yerself," said Baloo. "Just don't go wanderin' too far alone, ya hear?"

"Right. I'll check back with you in a few minutes," said Kit. He headed towards the hut Tyler and Bagheera stole into. Cautiously poking his head in an open window, he saw Bagheera pry the top off of a wooden crate. From it, he took out a square-shaped object wrapped in a white cloth. Kit ducked his head down when he saw his shadow cast on the far wall, but kept his ear close.

"I'm glad you arrived," said Bagheera. "Those guards are more familiar with you than me, you and your _beaming _reputation with everyone. There were more of them earlier, looking into everything. I handed over several boxes of trinkets we found, they seemed content with it and haven't asked any more questions. Thus far I've managed to keep _this _a secret."

"I saw our friends packing up their llamas," said Tyler. "I take that means our plan is working?"

"Yes, as far as the soldiers know, they've seen everything we have, and we're going to stroll right into the city with this little beauty as part of the caravan."

"Where exactly did you find it?" Tyler asked.

"The temple of Sin Rha'Amakhan, the tomb good Gatekeeper himself. It was a chamber I followed under the ziggurat... wait until I tell you how they had it rigged! And the corpses, hundreds of them, weapons and armor, all as they died after the citadel imploded! There's so much, I couldn't tear Myra away from it."

"Fantastic! I wish I could have... uh..." There was a short pause, Tyler hesitated. "If she chose to stay, didn't she know what I was coming?" Before Bagheera could answer, Tyler quickly added, "Wait, never mind. I don't want to know."

"She's business first, you know that," said Bagheera.

"And still oblivious as ever, no doubt."

"Well if you know that why don't you just _tell _her for once how-oh, hang it all. I'm not beating _that _dead horse with you again. May I show you this now?"

"Please!"

Bagheera removed the cloth, revealing the golden casing of the tome. Further, he opened the case and showed the leathery pages inside.

Tyler's jaw fell limp. "That looks... special."

Kit silently tiptoed next to the hut's door, trying to catch a glimpse of the artifact from behind their backs. But Bagheera wrapped it up and placed it inside the crate before he could get a chance.

Bagheera cleared this throat, and in a thespian manner, spoke, "As penned by General Zul Rhakeith himself, for which he may present to his fathers upon ascending to paradise, the account of his service to the throne, the Aridian war, and the studies of his charge, including, but not limited to, the legacy of Sargon and the history of the 'Ancient Cave', crafted into a fortress and renamed by the sitting king after himself: Rhamastan!"

"Bloody fantastic!" squeeled Tyler. "How far have you gotten into it?"

"I've been devouring it like mad, it's much different from the others. It reads like a manifesto for militant power, with long-winded reverence for emulating the chaos lord Sargon, and justified the invasion into Aridia and the genocide of his own people. He and the king were not merely obsessed with Sargon, they were absolutely _bonkers_. And we were correct that Rhakeith was a chief technical architect, but in all he was the _forth _second-banana in Rhama's reign. The other three were retired, if you can imagine what I mean."

"They were executed?"

"Ha, no! They literally retired, from old age. Rhama lived over two hundred years! Just like the stories the villagers tell! His closest servants also had long lives. Rhakeith wrote that Rhama lived almost exclusively in the Cave... apparently that stank underground air does wonders for vitality."

"Wow," Tyler breathed. "But what of Rhamastan? Do we have it?"

Bagheera's toothy grin, which replied a big affirmative to Tyler's question, glistened in sharp contrast to his black fur. From the same crate, he took out a map and unfolded it. "I've worked on it privately every second I could spare... I have our route all charted out."

As Bagheera explained the course to Tyler, Kit inched his way closer, stretching his neck as far as it could go. Bagheera held the map out between them, which was cluttered with penned-in notes, lines tracing paths, and X's. Once hit had a good enough view, he scrambled to memorize the marks on it, especially where a large, red 'X' was marked.

Tyler ogled over the same 'X', giddly laughter coming in small fits. "Excellent work, dear boy. After all these years..."

"And I remind you, we're the _only_ ones. You know Shere Khan is going to do everything he can to-" Bagheera suddenly spotted Kit out of the corner of his eye, and quickly folded the map.. "Uh, can we help you, lad?"

Kit jumped, startled. "Huh? Oh! Um... I..."

"What's up, Kit?" asked Tyler. "Something wrong?"

"N-no, I was just, um, that is I... I could've sworn I saw a chicken come in here that uh... that ran off with my hat."

"But you're wearing your hat," said Tyler.

"Oh... right. Heh, my mistake. It sure looked like my hat, though."

Bagheera looked at Tyler, who shrugged. "Well, we'll certainly keep an eye out for a chicken with something strange in its beak."

"Yeah, well, sorry to bother you guys, I'll be, um... see ya!" Kit spun around and darted out of the hut, but only to go around to the side, where he ducked under the open window again to listen.

"Strange boy," Bagheera remarked.

Tyler nodded. "First time in the jungle, I think. I hope he hasn't caught anything unhealthy... but anyway, you're right about Shere. Who knows what he'll pull to get this information."

"Exactly. Now, I love my team, they're just a bunch of lads working hard to put themselves through school, but I'm not fool enough to think they'd keep it a secret if Khan starts flashing enough money around, and I've no doubt that's certain."

"So what _did_ you tell them? They had to be anxious to find out about it."

"Oh, I handed them some rubbish about not wanting to expose the it to the climate... and when they got too curious, well, I lied. I told them the tome spoke of Rhamastan to be at Lake Titicoocoo."

"Brilliant," Tyler smiled. "So even if Shere tried to bribe them, they'd have his people searching completely in the wrong area!"

"_Now_ you've got the picture. And while they're busy digging up dirt who-knows-where, _we'll_ be putting ourselves in history books!" Bagheera opened the map back up, and the two began studying their course again. "Now, we've much to plan. Our destination lies here, inside the Rainbow Canyon, about forty miles, eighty-five degrees due east of Alpacito."

Then, Bagheera began describing all he had done and seen while exploring the ziggurat, and after Kit decided he had heard all he needed, he ran off to find Baloo.

The gray bear, meanwhile, being recognized as one of Bagheera and Tyler's friends, had been offered an ample bowl of fruit to eat by the locals and a blanket to rest on under a shady tree, both which he gratefully accepted. He was still sore from his bout with the llama, but the comfortable warm air and amiable atmosphere helped him forget about it. He sprawled out on the blanket and gingerly snacked on the fruit, tapping his foot to a merry recital of the 'Banana Boogie Woogie Blues' playing in his head.

Kit dashed up from behind him, looking as excited as a hungry cub in a candy shop. "Papa Bear?"

"Hey there, Li'l Britches. Man, do these guys know how to treat a guest or what?"

"Yeah, they're nice... can we talk for a sec?"

"Sure, kiddo." Baloo patted a spot on the blanket, gesturing for Kit to sit down. "What's on yer mind?"

Kit sat cross-legged next to him. "Did you happen to hear what Tyler was talking about on the way over here?"

"I think heard somethin' 'bout treasure. Want some of my mango?"

"No thanks. But yeah, that what I meant, treasure."

"Yeah? What about it?"

"Well, we have a lot of fun when we go on treasure hunts, right?"

"We sure do." Baloo started to laugh. "Remember that time we drove ol' Spiggy up the wall with that idol?"

"Yeah... but we found that idol, right?"

"Yep. Too bad it wasn't worth that much."

"And we've found others, too. Like the Idol of Doom, or Captain Juan Toomany's treasure."

"Yeah, we do pretty good sometimes. It's a wonder we ain't livin' the easy life by now instead of..."

Both fell silent for a moment. There was no need for him to finish that sentence. Kit spoke again, "Listen, Tyler really thinks there's a _huge _treasure in some caverns around here, and I'm staring to think he's right. Something like a big underground city, with lots of gold... we're talking _big_ _bucks_ here!"

"Now hold on a minute. You ain't suggestin' we go up _there_, are ya?" Baloo asked, jerking his thumb at the ominous Atronador Heights.

"Well... yeah."

"Aw, kid, don't believe everything ya hear. I was listenin' to some of what Tyler was sayin', and I'll tell ya... I've been on lot of treasure hunts in my life, and somethin' tells me there ain't nothing but chapped hide and bug bites 'round here."

"But you know these things are never a sure thing anyway. That's never stopped us before."

"Kit..."

"Just listen. Tyler said himself that he might not even start looking for it for a whole week. We can beat him to the punch!"

"Kit..."

"We take Tyler and his cargo back to Cape Suzette, come back here, and find it for ourselves, Baloo. We'll be rich!"

"Whoa, now calm down a minute! Yer soundin' more like one of Becky's screwball get-rich-quick schemes."

"_Screwball_? Compared to some of the things _you've_ come up with?"

"Hey, those were... _different_," Baloo said. "At least then, there was really a treasure there to look for."

"And who says we wouldn't this time?"

"All right then, tell me. What exactly is it we'd be tryin' to find?"

"Well, I don't know exactly..."

"Uh-huh."

"But I know where it's at!"

"Where _what's_ at?"

"This place they called Rhamastan, Baloo. It's probably a cave or a tunnel that goes inside the mountains, just like in the Carlsbear Caverns! I saw it marked on their map... I even heard them say directions out loud! I could find it on any map, I know it!"

"Aw, those mountain's ain't made for people to stand around an' look for a hole in the ground. You realize we'd freeze our fur off before anything else?"

"We'll take _really_ warm clothes, then," said Kit though clenched teeth.

"An' even if there was a big treasure, how do ya know it ain't under a mile of snow?"

"Snow? Well..." Kit hesitated, surprised and frustrated that Baloo should pick now, of all times, to be sensible.

"Sorry, I don't think so."

"We can at least _try_, Baloo."

"Kit, no, okay?"

Kit sighed, disappointed.

Baloo patted him on the shoulder, to offer a little consolation. "Say, partner, we got plenty of adventures left. Why you so itchin' all the sudden for this one?"

"I dunno... hearing those guys talk about it, and being so close to it... I started to get some ideas. I just thought it was something that could really help us out... you know, maybe pay off some bills. Maybe even for good."

"Yer heart's in the right place, Kit... but this 'Ramma-ham' just ain't what we need right now. Maybe when the next treasure hunt comes our way."

"Maybe." Kit stood up and brushed off some small leaves from his thigh. "Here comes Tyler, all smiles."

Tyler loaded the wooden crate on a llama-pulled wagon that was already full with other goods. "Gents," he called out, "We'll be riding back with our Felocian friends back to the city!" The Alpacatan soldiers, in half-stupor, had their groggy eyes on Tyler and the caravan; Tyler was speaking very projected and making exaggerated hand gestures to express his intentions. "Just helping them move some merchandise, and taking a few small things Bagheera found back to the museum!"

"Oh, goody," muttered Baloo. "More ridin'."

Several children suddenly brushed by the caravan, and approached Baloo with more plates of food.

"Aww, ain't that nice," he beamed. To his chagrin, though, the childrens' mothers came quickly along, and took the food back while muttering apologies to the big bruin. "Well, it was a nice _thought_, I guess."

"What was that all about?" Kit wondered.

"Well, they _are _quite hospitable here, but..." Tyler leaned over and whispered into Kit's ear, "If you knew what the children were saying, you'd know they were wagering how much he could eat."

After a brief round of thanks to the natives, the three were ready to head back to the city. Bagheera stayed behind with the intention of joining Myra back at the ziggurat site.

"Um, wait a minute guys," Baloo said as they were about to leave. "Anyone wanna trade trade llamas?"

* * *

Meanwhile, a large seaplane bearing Khan Industries insignia on its tail was en route to Alpacatan.

Richter sat in the main hold, propping his feet over a big crate. He kept quiet through most of the trip and left the pilots alone to their duty, not wanting to be bothered himself. The hold was cluttered with crates of supplies; rifles, ropes, chains, explosives, spare ammunition, and hiking and camping equipment. Lacking no respect for the predators of the jungle, Richter's tools of choice were his machete and grenades, simple preferences compared to the wealth of resources afforded by his employer. He'd let the two flyboys worry about setting up camp and keeping track of the inventory. He had been there many times; the least of any problems they would have would be keeping dry out of the rain.

He leaned forward and asked his two companions, "Any chance you guys know anything about Conway L-16's? Can they make a round trip from the Cape to Alpacatan without a refuel?"

"Most planes can't," replied the co-pilot. "It'd have to be modified with extra tanks."

"Where'd be the most likely place they'd have to stop?" asked Richter.

"There's only one place out in the middle of all this ocean. It's an island this guy turned into a night club."

"Yeah, everyone with wings knows about Louie's," said the pilot.

Richter began polishing his machete on his pant leg. "Let's go there first."

"Roger that."

After a moment, Richter leaned forward again. "And for the record, I know what you've been told, and I don't want you tagging along when we get to the jungle."

"With all due respect, sir, we have our orders."

Richter almost chortled. "You got any idea what you're getting yourself into?"

The pilots glanced at each other, not understanding the question.

"Khan said you had military. That include survival training?"

"Basic, sure."

"Basic, huh?" Richter stretched out his left leg, slowly rubbing the bandaging around his thigh, which three months prior had the venomous jaws of an Atronador varan sunk into it, and left him recovering since. The wound had gone much farther than his pride, nearly costing him his life. "You guys got families?"

"Sure do."

"Hope you kissed them goodbye when you left."

* * *

"Man, I'm tellin' ya," said Baloo, "if I ever go back ta that Apla-whatchamacallit, it'll be too soon." He could hardly be happier to be back in the Sea Duck, sitting in his comfortable pilot's seat, the curves of which were far more adept to his backside than anything else, especially saddles. He couldn't resist giving his mind about llamas to the person who rented them, who simply waved him off with 'Adios, gordo.' Kit translated it for him: "He says, 'Beat it, fatso.'"

"At least we didn't run into nasty weather," said Tyler. "Or anything with sharp teeth."

"Yeah, but I'd take bad weather an' sharp teeth any day'a the week over one of them mangey mules." Baloo looked at Kit, who, leaning on the arm of his chair, rested his head on his hand, keeping a protective watch on the wooden crate as if it were going to disappear any second. "Something 'bout that box, kid?"

"Nuh-uh. I just wanna make sure it's safe."

"It's safe, Li'l Britches," Baloo chuckled. "Our work's as good as done. Now will ya relax a little? You ain't even _seen _the clouds out there. Why don't ya go out an' hit the mist for awhile?"

Kit brightened. "Yeah, good idea!"

"Hit the mist?" Tyler asked as Kit ran past him.

"You'll see," said Baloo.

Tyler sat in the navigator's chair, curiously watching the boy, and saw the Sea Duck's rear cargo doors open wide. "Baloo, the back. Kit's going to fall out-er, Kit!"

The fox was nearly about to jump out of his seat when Kit grabbed hold of the towrope, leapt out of the plane and dropped out of sight... but suddenly resurfaced with a shiny, chrome airfoil under his feet. Tyler couldn't believe his own eyes. "How... how does he...?"

"_Wa-hoo!_" shouted Kit. His sweater flapped vigorously like a flag hoisted in high winds, the air screamed in his face, and he loved every bit of it. Off to his right, he spotted a group of rich cumulus clouds filling the sky that he just _had_ to skim over. "Hey Baloo! Two o'clock!"

Baloo looked out his window, cupping his ear.

"Two o'clock!" Kit repeated, this time pointing. Baloo nodded and banked the Sea Duck to the right.

"Awright!" The cub could actually _feel_ those fluffy clouds already. As the white puffs drew closer, though, suddenly all he anticipated fell into dread. "_Pirates_!"

Three CT-37's cut through the clouds, severing Kit's towrope in a spray of bullets.

"Pirates!" cried Baloo. He had no time to react, it was all happening too fast. "Oh no, Kit!" He turned to see the boy gliding down to the ocean on his board. "Hold on, Tyler, Kit fell!"

Tyler groaned, closed his eyes and gripped the armrests with white knuckles as Baloo flipped the Sea Duck upside down and pulled a hard turn, swooping down to the sea. Kit landed safely, skimming the ocean's surface like a skipping stone before toppling into the water. He used his airfoil as a makeshift life preserver while Baloo brought the Sea Duck down, with the pirates shadowing his wing. They would have an easy capture as soon as the plane stopped.

"Gimme yer hand, Li'l Britches!" Baloo leaned out the Sea Duck's side door and lifted the shivering cub out of the water. The pirates had already landed their craft and were ready to board.

"I-I'm sorry, Baloo," said Kit, his teeth chattering. "Dangit, you could've ditched them if it wasn't for me!"

"Shh, easy now," said Baloo, wiping Kit's dripping brow with his hand. "It ain't yer fault."

Tyler pulled a blanket off the plane's bottom bunk and placed it over Kit's shoulders. Then all three waited for the inevitable...

"Allo allo, my pea-brained pillage-ees!" Don Karnage leaped into the Sea Duck, doing his best to appear as dashing as he always knew he was. Mad Dog and Dumptruck soon followed. "My my, Baloo, stealing from you is getting more and more like taking the candy away from the baby-child, yes-no?"

Then, smiling cockily, he looked at the dripping wet boy. "Ah, and Mister Cloudkicker! Did we enjoy our little swim?"

"Stuff it, Karnage," blurted Kit.

"Tsk, such a rotten tongue!" Karnage drew his cutlass, holding the sharp tip close to Kit's mouth. "Perhaps you would like me to _remove _it?"

"Hey, lay off, Karnage," Baloo warned. Kit's fur ruffled, but he choked back further insults.

As Mad Dog and Dumptruck searched through the plane, Karnage noticed Tyler. "Uno momento..." The captain pointed at the fox with his sword. "I know you from somewhere, yes?"

"Oh, I uh... I don't know about that." Tyler backpedaled into the cockpit and sat on the crate, casually crossing his legs. "I have a very common face, you know."

Karnage raised an eyebrow, nodding slightly. "Yes, perhaps..."

"Boss, there ain't nothin' here," Mad Dog said.

"No?" Karnage scratched his ear, stumped. "So far away from Cape Suzette with no cargo?"

"Uh, would ya believe we're goin' fishin'?" said Baloo hopefully.

"_Fishing_?" Karnage swiped his sword recklessly, making Dumptruck and Mad Dog duck. "You have no fishing poles!"

Dumptruck took a strong sniff. "Or vorms."

Baloo faltered for an excuse. "Uh, well ya see... worms are outta season. "

Mad Dog pointed at Tyler. "Hey boss, he's sittin' on somethin'!"

"Uh, well _of_ _course_ I am," Tyler said quickly. "Otherwise I'd be standing up... right?"

Karnage scowled at Mad Dog for being so inane. "Yes, _of course_ he is, you fooligan, otherwise he would be..." He paused and blinked. "Get him off of that!"

Tyler yelped as Mad Dog threw him face first onto the floor. Baloo helped him back up while Karnage stepped up to the crate. "Well well... playing the seeking-go-hiding game for such a little box. I think we should have a look-see, _s__í_?"

"You can't have it!" Kit shouted.

Karnage looked at him as if he was stupid. "Excusé? _Who_ is the pirate around here?" Dumptruck kept his musket pointed at the three 'pillage-ees' while Karnage kicked open the top of the crate. When he saw what was inside, he froze, stunned and speechless.

"Duh, what is it, captain?" asked Dumptruck.

"I am not believing what I am seeing," Karnage exhaled. Tucking his cutlass under his arm, he reached in and lifted the golden case. Baloo, Kit, and Karnage's lackeys let out a collective gasp of astonishment... Tyler could only close his eyes with a bleak groan.

"I _know_ this," said Karnage. "It is... it is... _now_ I remember you!" He quickly turned to Tyler. "_You_ and that overgrown hairball! You stole my treasure map!"

"Actually, we call it a tome," Tyler absently corrected, until he realized Karnage's cutlass was up against his neck. "Or, m-map's fine. Map is a _good_ name. In fact, I like it better!"

"Look at this, capt'n." said Mad Dog. He reached in the crate and took out the map Bagheera had charted and folded it open for his boss to see. "What is it?"

"I would say it looks like..." Karnage smirked at Tyler, "... a _treasure _map."

"Keen observation," the fox moaned.

_'He's gonna ruin everything,' _Kit thought. He looked up at Baloo, wondering if he was going to try to stop Karnage from running off with the artifact, but nothing could be done.

Kit looked Karnage straight in the eye. "You're... you're not going to get away with this, not this time!"

All three pirates couldn't help but laugh. Kit's face flushed red, knowing he sounded like a fool to them. "Oh, my boy," Karnage wiped his eyes with his sleeve, "I am afraid I always do, yes-no?"

Kit's eyes narrowed at him spitefully. "I swear it," he growled, in such a grave tone that it even made Baloo start. He drew Kit behind him and a little further from the pirates, lest more trouble start.

While Mad Dog and Dumptruck still laughed, the smile on Karnage's face faded. There was something about Kit's fiery stare that disturbed him, but he shrugged it off. "Enough of this nincompoopery," he said. He sheathed his cutlass and carefully secured the golden case in his arms. "We leave now. I have gr_rr_eat plans! And remember, my plundered parasites, as I have proven time and time some more, there is _nothing_ you can have which _I_ cannot take away! Hee hee!"

Kit sneered, disgusted at how many times he heard Karnage say that.

As the air pirates exited, Karnage made sure he was the last one to step out, and took one final look back at his victims, making sure they noticed the arrogant glow on his face. "Adios!"

As the sound of the CT-37's engines faded away, Tyler sat down on the Sea Duck's bunk, removing his fedora and rubbing his eyes wearily. Baloo sat next to him, taking Kit by the shoulder. "Kit, I know yer upset, but try not ta make that crook any crazier than he already is."

"Sorry," Kit replied, shrugging away from him. It was an empty apology, no more sincere than if he said it to Karnage himself.

"So what're we gonna do now?" Baloo muttered to Tyler.

"I... I don't know," he replied. He threw his hat against the wall. "_Confound _that pirate."

Kit, meanwhile, glared at the pirate attack planes as they disappeared beyond the clouds. _'__I swear it...'_


	3. A long detour

**Chapter 3**

**A long detour**

Once the Sea Duck was off and flying again, the the hope of the dismal mood improving among those onboard seemed far from promising. Few syllables were spoken since takeoff. Tyler reclined in the navigator's seat with his hat over his eyes, while Kit was in back wringing out his sweater.

Baloo glanced at the fuel gauge, noticing it more than half empty. "Gonna need some gas. You in any hurry to get ta Cape Suzette?"

"Not anymore," said Tyler. "Not at all, really."

"Me neither," Baloo replied. "There's an island not too far from here where we can gas up... maybe take our mind off'a things too. Louie's Place."

"Fine with me, I suppose."

Baloo sighed. "I sure ain't lookin' forward ta tellin' Becky 'bout this."

"I'm not looking forward to telling _anyone _about this."

"An' look, I really _am _sorry about your... well, I don't know _what _you'd call it, but it sure looked expensive."

"No, it's not your fault. Believe me, I've tangled with enough thieves in my years to know you can't always fend them off. If anything, I'm not so much worried about what Karnage took than the probability of him knowing how to use it... but then, he really doesn't need to decipher anything, since I packed that blasted map with it. He really did have the perfect plunder today."

After a few more moments of silence, Tyler began to chuckle softly.

"What's funny?" asked Baloo.

"I don't know... everything. The sheer irony of it all. It's funny the way karma can come up and bite you on the tail, isn't it?"

"Huh?"

"Oh, I was just thinking of how my old partner and I snuck into the Iron Vulture and actually stole something from Karnage for a change... another tome, no less. That pirate was _so_ furious. And how today he was at the right place at the right time. The way everything just fell into his favor... it's just too coincidental."

"Ain't so funny ta me."

"If anything, I'm more upset about it than anyone; but I guess if I didn't laugh, I'd cry."

"I know, yer right... Look at me, tryin' this mornin' to pull Kit out of his mopin', and here I am worse than he was now."

Tyler straightened himself in his seat. "It was rotten luck. _Really_ rotten. It's not the end of the world, though... How far is this Louie's Place did you say?"

"We'll be there in 'bout half an hour."

**

* * *

**

"Here ya go, fuzzy!" Louie placed an extra-large Krakatoa Special with three spoons in front of them. "On the house."

"Heh-hey, thanks Louie!" Baloo said brightly.

"I just hate to see you folks so down in the mouth," Louie said, smiling. "You're makin' the joint look bad. Ya act like ya never got your cargo shanghaied before."

"Don't rub it in, huh?" Baloo said, taking a spoonful of ice cream.

"Sorry, cuz, just tryin' to lighten things up." Louie leaned his elbows on the counter and looked at Kit, whose mind seemed to be far away in thought. "So how're you holdin' up, Shortstop?"

"Uh, fine. Thanks."

Somewhat disappointed by the gloom in Kit's tone, Louie finally turned to Tyler; at least _he_ looked like he still had a pulse, though he was caught in a distance stare that left question if he even knew where he was. "How 'bout you, Tyler my man? You likin' your first visit here?"

"Oh, yes, thank you," Tyler replied, taking a small helping of the Krakatoa Special. He noticed some pilots on the bar had drinks. "But I don't suppose you have anything available that's, well, _stronger _than ice cream."

"You mean forget-yer-troubles kind of strong?" asked Louie.

"I got just what you need!" grinned Louie.

"_No _you don't," said Baloo. "Not if yer talkin' World Famous Five Alarm Red Pepper an' Pineapple Chili.'

"Hey," said Louie, "one bowl of that, and it's _guaranteed _to make whatever's on your mind the least of your problems!"

"I'll stick with the ice cream, then, thanks," said Tyler. "It's not bad at all. My compliments"

"Thanks, cuz," said Louie. "Glad to see ya ain't draggin' your tail behind ya like two _other_ cats I know."

Both bears rolled their eyes.

"Well, that's not to say I'm not unhappy. But it doesn't hurt to keep optimistic."

Kit morosely scooped his spoon around the bowl, not interested in eating. "I bet _Karnage_ sure is right now."

"Oh, he thinks he's a sly one, all right," said Tyler. "But he can be outdone, you know."

"Right on," Louie said. "And if anyone knows about pullin' one over ol' Don Karnage and his goons, it's my main man Baloo over here! Why don'tcha tell us about the time you were flyin' to Cimmeria with a plane full of light bulbs?"

"Aw, Louie, you've heard that one before."

_'Only thirty-three times and countin','_ thought Louie . "C'mon, fuzzy, refresh our memories."

"Naw, no one wants ta hear that stale ol' story again."

"Well, cuz, I guess if ya ain't in the mood..."

"Okay, ya talked me into it," Baloo said quickly, setting down his spoon. "Now, picture this. Kit an' I are flyin' one day to Cimmeria with a big load of light bulbs. Thousands of 'em! When all the sudden, Karny and his gang come outta nowhere shootin' at me, and oh baby, you talk about bein' outnumbered! So anyway I..."

**

* * *

**

"... And when I finally landed, only half the light bulbs were broke. Just half! How's _that_ for fancy flyin'?" Baloo finished with a gleam in his eyes.

By that time, everyone around him looked dazed, and the Krakatoa Special had nearly melted. Baloo looked at each of them expectantly, waiting for someone to comment.

Tyler cleared his throat. "That was um... _interesting_, Baloo... and amazingly detailed."

"Yes, Baloo," said Kit, bored. "I was there. I remember."

"Thirty-four," Louie sighed. One of Louie's employees, who was working at the dock, burst into the club, and jumped over the counter, nearly knocking his boss head-over-feet. "What in tarnation's wrong with _you_?" asked Louie. The employee frantically whispered something into his ear, and the ape's eyes widened. "They're _what_?"

"S'matter, Louie?" asked Baloo , through a big mouthful of ice cream. "Run outta bananas out back?"

"He says someone's breakin' into _your _plane, fuzzy!"

That big mouthful of ice cream quickly made its way onto the top of Louie's counter. "_My _plane?"

Baloo slid out of his barstool about as fast as he had ever moved in his life, and hit the ground with his feet running. No sooner did he face the door than the culprit, being pointed at by Louie's employee, came inside.

Tyler had to do a double-take. "Richter?"

"_Richter_?" Kit snapped his head around to look, where one of the most unpleasantly familiar persons he had never hoped to see again had appeared. "Oh, no. What's _he _doing here?"

Towering over the two panthers with 'SK' emblems on their jackets that accompanied him, Richter stood just inside the doorway, scanning the crowd. He instantly became the center of attention, causing the usually jovial atmosphere to turn into mostly whispers and stares of suspicion.

"_That's _him?" Baloo eyed him from head to toe, realizing Kit didn't exaggerate that 'big bully' description.

"I thought _you_ were a big boy, Baloo," Louie commented. "But that guy's gotta be at least a Baloo-and-a-half."

"Well I don't care how big he is," scowled Baloo. "If he touched my plane, it's gonna be a mistake he won't wanna make again!"

"Easy, now," Tyler said, stepping in front of him. "Just stay here with the lad for a moment, let me see what's up."

Kit buried his head in his arms over the counter. "Why'd I even _get up _this morning?"

"Hello, Jesse," Tyler said as he walked up to the large grizzly bear. "What an unexpected surprise."

"I'm sure it is. It's been awhile." Richter offered his hand, which Tyler shook. "Heard you found something interesting today."

"My, doesn't word get around fast when Khan deploys his spies," said Tyler. "But might I ask how you knew I was here?"

"A little elementary, but let's cut to the chase. Where is it?"

Tyler sighed. "For shame, Jesse. You're here to try to steal it."

"You can name your price, Borden. It doesn't have to be like that."

"I'm afraid it does. You and I don't play on the same team."

Richter chuckled. "I'm sure there's _someone_ that'd be willing to talk for the right price... I'll find out."

"Well, you do what you have to."

"But really, where _is_ it? You didn't bring it in _here_, did you?"

"If you must know, we lost it."

At that, a grave scowl fell across Richter's face. "What do you mean, _lost_ it?"

"We ran into an air pirate or two on our way over. You figure it out."

At first, Richter didn't believe him. "Borden, you never lost a piece of lint out of your bellybutton. Trying to throw me off, huh?"

Tyler tilted his chin straight at Richter's nose. "Frankly, as I feel right now after a day like today, you coming over here, breaking into planes and trying to bamboozle the tome for yourself, I'd love to throw you off, but off of _what _is the question."

"Check yourself," Richter growled. "If you picked yourself up a spine, how did the pirates just get away with it?"

"You'll pardon me, but a cutlass up against my throat does wonders for my generosity."

Richter groaned, rubbing his brow, as if the very thought of the pirate's involvement drove a pin through his head. "I've hunted for that thing for as long as you have. Breaking my back, turning over every piece of rock in the Atronador. And for it to end up with that no-good piece of trash..." He slammed his fist into his palm; everyone looking on flinched. "I swear I'm gonna bust that rodent's stinkin' skull open one of these days..." His eyes absently skimmed over Tyler's head at the faces in the room. By chance, he locked eyes with Kit, and saw the boy quickly turn away. Richter tilted his head, puzzled.

"What is it?" Tyler asked.

"It couldn't be," Richter mumbled to himself, then headed over towards the bar. The boy's face, fur complexion, even his green sweater were all too recognizable. "It _is_..."

Tyler became uneasy and zipped in front of him. "Jesse, where are you going?"

"It's that one kid," he said, "the one with the pirates. They're _here_."

"Hold on, now, I think I better explain something to you. It's not what you think."

"It better _not _be what I think." Richter brushed Tyler aside and approached the bar. "Hey, kid."

When Kit ignored him, Richter was about to grab Kit by his shoulder and turn him around to face him, but Baloo jumped in, and forced himself between Kit and the grizzly.

"Baloo, no!" Kit cried.

"Hey pal," Baloo said, "you got a problem?"

With not an ounce of hesitation, Richter shoved him clear out of his way and glared down on Kit, who in turn glared back up at him.

Tyler made a futile attempt to pull the massive bear away from Kit. "Will you calm down? You're making an awful mistake here."

"There's no mistake," Richter said. "I don't forget pirates."

Kit winced. _Everyone_ heard that.

"Jesse, do _not _start." Tyler said, in a sterner tone. "I can vouch that's not true anymore."

"_You _can vouch? You were there when he wouldn't leave 'em."

"He had his reasons, Jesse, I'm sure."

"Yeah, I know his reasons. Once a pirate, _always_ a pirate."

Baloo once again stepped in front of Richter. "Listen here, bonehead, the kid's with me and I ain't gonna let ya stand there and talk like that, understand?"

"Who are _you_?" sneered Richter, as if just noticing the gray bear for the first time.

"I'm trouble for _you_ if ya don't _back off_!" Baloo retorted.

Kit jumped down from his stool and pulled Baloo's arm. "Baloo, _don't_. It's just talk."

Tyler was doing the same to Richter, who was thoroughly unimpressed by the pilot. "Huh. Big talk for a fat little runt."

"_Fat little runt_?" Baloo freed his arm from Kit's grasp and poked Richter in the chest. "How'd _you_ like a mouthful'a teeth?"

"I'd like to see you try it!" Richter responded with a finger to Baloo's own chest, knocking him back a few steps.

"Hey now, you guys," Louie started from behind the bar. "There ain't no need for trouble."

Kit and Tyler placed themselves between the two bears, trying to separate them as if they were trying to keep two walls from closing in on each other.

"No, Baloo," Kit pleaded, "_please _don't do this!"

"Sorry, Kit, but this guy's askin' for it!"

At the other end: "Jesse, will you calm down?"

"I'd like to know what that fatso's doin' with a pirate," Richter said.

"Kit is _not_ a pirate," Tyler replied. "I'm trying to get that through your head. They're with me, and in fact, in the plane, they stood up to Karnage like you wouldn't-"

Richter quickly clenched Tyler's muzzle shut. "He was on the plane with you? Well isn't that interesting... and a coincidence that Don Karnage got involved, I suppose."

"Just what're you sayin'?" Baloo demanded.

"Let me draw you a postcard, fly-boy. Your kid's just like the rest of 'em, dyed-in-the-womb back-stabbin' little bastard!"

"That's it!" Baloo roared, advancing towards Richter.

Kit tried desperately to stop him. "Let it go, Baloo, it's all right! Don't try to fi-Baloo, no!"

It was too little, too late. Putting all the weight he had into it, Baloo threw a punch across Richter's jaw. The room became deathly still.

The bigger bear rocked backward on his feet, stumbling against the bar. Inside his mouth, the sharp sting on his cheek tasted bitterly of blood. Calmly, though, he took a moment to run his finger across his teeth, to make sure none were loose.

"Oh dear," Tyler muttered. The odds of him keeping Richter at bay were now slim to none. Baloo brandishing his fists, boxer-style, as if daring Richter to fight back, did not help peace-keeping matters.

"Try that one more time," Richter dared, cracking his knuckles. "Please."

"Hoh-oh, buddy, I thought you'd never ask!" Baloo wound his arm back again, his sights set on Richters nose, and threw another punch... but this time, Richter caught his blow in mid-swing. In the size difference between thier meaty paws, Baloo's fist was but a baseball in the grizzly's palm.

"Jesse," hissed Tyler, anxiously, "Jesse, I _implore_ you-Je- Jesse, no!"

Richter twisted Baloo's arm down and landed a monstrous right hook into the side of his head. Kit's face became terror-stricken as Baloo fell against the counter. Richter was not finshed just yet, though. He pulled the pilot up and launched a left uppercut into his midsection, sending him airborne and crashing through a table with a sickening thud.

"_Baloo_!" screamed Kit, rushing to his aid. He kneeled on the scraps of wood and cradled his head. His voice cracked, "Papa Bear?"

Baloo was barely stirring. Soon Richter's shadow fell across the cub as he reached down and grabbed Baloo's shirt collar, and wound his fist back high in the air with the intent to finish the fight for good.

"No!" Kit shielded Baloo's head with his body; with his eyes shut tight, he waited to take Richter's blow if he had to, but he would not budge.

Richter held his position for a few seconds, inwardly debating whether or not to follow through. He could have simply tore the boy away and tossed him aside like a piece of crumbled paper. At length, he let go of Baloo's shirt.

"Hey, you big palooka!" Louie came from around the bar, wielding a broom as if it were the Great Axe of Doom. "I'll teach ya to pick on someone your own size! C'mon!" From there, he set loose with a series of odd punching and kicking karate-like gestures, with varying 'hi-ya' sound effects. Richter watched him as if it was the most confusing sight he had ever seen, right up until Louie managed to whack himself in the mouth trying to twirl the broom. "Ow! Uh, I _meant _to do that!"

Finally annoyed, Richter snatched the broom away from Louie and snapped the handle in two with his thumb. "Don't get yourself hurt, too, banana beak."

Realizing the broomstick could have very well been his neck, Louie gulped and stepped back. At that moment, though, the rest of the pilot crowd was getting over its initial shock and began gathering their mettle.

"Hey, he can't do that to Baloo!" someone shouted.

"Let's get the big bum," said another. Soon, almost the entire restaurant was clamoring with similar threats. The two panthers that accompanied Richter huddled together by the entrance, being sure to keep out of the scene, as if they risk being tarred and feathered by an angry mob.

Several men started to surround the grizzly, but when Richter set his hand on the hilt of his sheathed machete, they had second thoughts. "Don't bother," he said, half-smirking. "I was just leaving."

The crowd parted to let him pass through. "Let's go," he told the two panthers, "we've got work to do."

As they left, Louie and Tyler joined Kit by Baloo's side, followed by a gathering of the rest of the concerned crowd.

Kit shook him gently. "Come on, Papa Bear, wake up."

After a moment, Baloo groggily stirred. "That all y' got," he muttered. "My granny c'n hit harder than that..."

Kit slumped over him, relieved that he was coming around. "Oh, Baloo, I told you not to..."

"Kit...?" Through glazed, blinking eyes, Baloo looked up at him, and then at the rest, puzzled. "Wha... what 's goin' on?" He tried to sit up, but the pain in his ribs forced him to drop back down, groaning. "Ooh-_geez Louise_, that smarts."

They soon helped him up to a chair, and Louie fetched a first aid kid an applied a bandage around Baloo's brow while Kit and the others explained to him what had just happened. He was still wobbly and disoriented, though, and at times they wondered if he had even heard half of what they were saying.

"You gotta be kiddin' me," Baloo said in a low voice. "I don't 'member gettin' knocked out."

"Aw, he's in no shape to fly," said Kit aside to Louie. "You gotta let him stay here for the night."

"Now don't you worry 'bout that, Shortstop," he replied. "It's done and done!"

**

* * *

**

Later that afternoon, Tyler caught a ride back to Cape Suzette with one of the regulars of Louie's club. He had business to attend to of his own, but promised to drop by Higher for Hire first thing to inform Rebecca about what had happened.

Kit had been thinking of the last time Baloo took such a nasty bump, when the Sea Duck had crashed in Miracle Pass, causing a pressurized gauge to explode from the cockpit's ceiling and hit him in the head. Baloo had come out of it all right, but had lost his memory for awhile. Kit didn't get much sleep throughout the ordeal, especially when Baloo ended up missing for a couple days.

For all the worrying he did, it was a great relief when Baloo suddenly came back, healthy as if nothing had even happened. As he waited there at Louie's, he was confident Baloo would feel a lot better come morning, but every time he recalled the sickening, savage blow Richter threw, it twisted his stomach. The impact looked to have been brutal enough to crack a boulder, much less what it could do to a person.

Baloo had an ugly mark near his right temple, and could hardly move without gesturing that his chest hurt. He insisted he would be all right, but throughout the day his head never did seem to stop spinning. He was given some aspirin, and, despite his protests, was helped to one of Louie's bungalows, where he fell fast asleep in bed.

Louie came in to check on them once in a while, and had brought Kit a meal at dinnertime, but other than that, the rest of the day passed without much variation, until Kit himself finally fell asleep on another bed much later that night.

_'Once a pirate, __**always **__a pirate!' _The cruel voice echoed through Kit's dreams, cold and taunting. Scores of stares pierced him with probing, curious gazes. It was all happening again...

_'Baloo, no! He'll hurt you! Papa Bear, please!'_

It was like watching a horrifying story unfold that you knew the ending to, but could do nothing to change it. Kit was like a fly caught in a smothering, invisible web, helpless to intervene. He heard no sound except for the pulsing drum of his own heart as Baloo fell to the ground.

Kit turned to face Richter. Except for them, the room was now empty, and somehow his fear had disappeared, leaving only anger, the kind that made you want to break something. He wanted to hurt him-not knowing how, exactly, but he didn't care. Fists clenched, he charged at the grizzly, but something was wrong... he couldn't run. Despite struggling, his limbs moved as if he was submerged in water, and any confidence he had mustered quickly fell as he how hopelessly out-muscled he was. Suddenly, he felt Richter's hand squeezing around his neck, lifting him up. It was all real again, the pain, suffocation, fear, and being powerless to do anything about it...

In a sharp breath, Kit opened his eyes. His heart was beating fast, and his clothes and pillow were damp with sweat. Coughing, he sat up and looked at Baloo, who was sound asleep and snoring as pleasantly as he usually did, which was comforting.

"Geez, what a night," Kit yawned quietly. The sun had already risen, and the windows were aglow with pale gray light. Kit pulled off his sweater and left it on the bed, and stumbled into the small, adjoining bathroom to rinse off his face. Before splashing himself with some lukewarm water, he leaned against the sink, looking at his reflection in the mirror for a moment. The hair over his brow was poofed upward like a peacock's pinfeathers, and his fur was ruffled and scruffy. If there was a such thing as beauty sleep, he had the farthest variation from it.

It had seem every time he finally dozed off, he had another nightmare about the day before, though after waking the only thing he remembered about them was wanting to knock the stuffing out of Richter.

A lone taxi plane had approached the docks in front of Louie's restaurant, which were empty save for the Sea Duck and a couple other seaplanes that were being refueled. Kit heard the taxi's engines and looked out the window just in time to see it fly off. The air outside was cold and thick with gray mist over the ocean. Two figures were approaching the bungalow through the fog. "Wildcat...? Miz Cunningham!"

Wiping away what sleep was left in his eyes, Kit slipped back in his sweater and met them on the stoop. "Boy, am I glad to see you guys."

"Oh, Kit, where is he?" asked Rebecca. "I heard the entire story! Is he all right?"

"Yeah, I think so," Kit replied. "He slept like a baby all night."

As she went inside, Wildcat followed shortly behind her, holding Molly; nestled in a warm, fuzzy coat, she slumped sound asleep over his shoulder. "Hey, Kit! Can Baloo tell the time better now?"

"Huh?"

He gestured behind him, toward the docks. "The guys over there said he got hisclock cleaned."

Kit cupped his forehead, wearily. "Wildcat... just come inside before you get lost."

Wildcat nodded. "Yeah, like, you can never be too careful on a strange porch. I could tell you a story about my poor Uncle Wally..."

"Baloo?" Rebecca shook his bed gently to wake him. "Baloo, are you okay?"

Baloo squinted up at her, then flipped the covers over his head. "Aw, Becky, gimme five more minutes, will ya?" Then, after a long, heavy yawn, he added, "Make it an hour."

"Well," Rebecca huffed, giving him a scolding look.

"It's okay, Miz Cunningham," Kit told her. "He's delirious."

"Don't I know it," she groaned, and pulled the covers off his head. "Baloo, wake _up_."

"H'oh, baby, I got one mean headache," he muttered. He started to sit up, but a pain in his chest startled him and caused him to flop back down. "Holy mackerel, I feel like I've been hit by a truck." Then he felt his head, where the bruise near his temple was bandaged up. "Becky, what'n the world happened?"

"We're still at Louie's, Papa Bear," Kit answered. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Louie's? Why, I-last thing I remember was... that guy! He was pickin' on Kit, and I slugged 'im, and... and..."

"And he slugged you back," said Kit. "A little bit harder."

"Poor Baloo, does it hurt much?" cooed Rebecca, like a mother to an infant. "I want you to see a doctor as soon as we get home."

"You mean ta tell me that big yahoo did this?" Baloo stared at the ceiling for a moment, remembering what he saw last, which was the blur of Richter's fist in his face. "Huh. Maybe I should'a known better than ta pick a fight with a guy with a guy twice _my _size."

He looked up at Rebecca, regretfully. The only thing worst than the embarrassment of getting knocked cold was waiting to get an earful from your boss about irresponsible, savage behavior. "You ain't mad, are ya?"

"Forget it," she said. "The creep had it coming."

"Can you get up okay, Papa Bear?"

"'Course I can, Lil' Britches. Why, I just had the wind knocked outta me, is all." With much effort to appear unharmed, Baloo slowly sat up at the side of the bed, suppressing a number of grunts and groans. By his dizzied blinking, though, it was apparent he wasn't quite as all right as he would have liked to admit.

"Well, maybe just a... _few _minor aches," he said, rubbing his chest. Then he attempted to unwrap the bandage on his head, but thought twice when he touched the sore spot. "Ouch! Er, well, maybe that can stay on fer awhile."

Kit reached up and hugged him, gently as if he might break by his touch. "You sure had me scared."

"Aw, no sweat, kid. You don't think ol' Baloo would fold over that easy, do ya?"

"Nah, I guess not."

**

* * *

**

By the early afternoon, they were back in Cape Suzette. Wildcat did the flying, despite Baloo's protesting. Rebecca and Kit convinced him it was better for him to take it easy, and their judgement was well-placed; shortly after takeoff Baloo's grogginess once again took the better of him, and he spent most of the trip sleeping it off.

As the day grew hot and bright, Kit and Wildcat were busy on Higher for Hire's dock, loading countless crates of cargo into the Sea Duck.

"I'd like to tie that big jerk that hit him to a propeller," said Kit, as he had just finished explaining the whole scenario to Wildcat. He rested the dolly he was pushing, and took a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow. "Baloo was just trying to stick up for me, is all."

Shortly thereafter, the telephone rang from the office. Kit set down a box he was carrying and rushed in to answer it, plopping in Rebecca's desk chair and fanning himself with his ball cap. "Hello? Hey, Miz Cunningham. Where are you?"

Rebecca explained that she and Baloo had just returned to her apartment from the clinic, and that Baloo was going to rest there for awhile; as she spoke, Baloo's voice griped loudly in the distance, "Just remember, doctors don't know everything, ya know."

"Quit pouting about it, buster," Rebecca chided him. "You heard what he said, and that's final!"

"It _ain't _final!"

Kit momentarily pulled the receiver away from his ear and rolled his eyes. He heard enough of their verbal tennis matches in person, let alone having to hear them over the phone. "Well, what _did _the doctor say?" he asked.

"Four bruised ribs and a concussion," Rebecca replied. "He's to spend the rest of the week resting. No work."

"Oh gee, I'll bet he'll mind _that_," Kit grinned.

Rebecca began to explain further, "Well, it's not the working part he's upset about..."

"No _flying_, either," Baloo said, huffily.

"The doctor said it'd be for your own good!" Rebecca reminded him (for already the fifth time). Then to Kit, she continued, "It's a good thing we went. The doctor said he was lucky the bump on his head wasn't as serious as it could have been."

"'The doctor said, the doctor said,'" Baloo mimicked under his breath. "I suppose yer just _dyin' _to tell 'im, aren't ya?"

"Oh, hush now," she said. "I keep telling you, he didn't mean it as an insult. He said it was the very thing that helped you!"

Kit heard Baloo grumble to himself and stomp away. He glanced at the telephone receiver, by now very confused. "Well?"

"The doctor said Baloo was lucky because he had a..." Rebecca paused to clear her throat. Though Kit couldn't see it, she seemed to be suppressing a laugh. "Well, a thick skull."

Kit blinked. "Huh."

Then Baloo's voice bellowed again, "Go 'head and tell 'em what _you _said, Miz Thoughtful!"

"I _said _I was sorry!" Rebecca shouted back. "It was just a joke!"

"What's all that about?" Kit asked.

"Oh, honestly," she replied. "Just a little remark I happened to make when the doctor told us about Baloo's thick head."

"And he didn't say _'thick head'_!" cried Baloo.

"Er, what little remark?"

"I told him he didn't know the half of what he was talking about."

**

* * *

**

As Wildcat loaded the last of the cargo, Kit browsed the inventory, reading an itinerary list as he shuffled between the boxes and crates in the cargo hold. "Six dozen cases of aluminum to the Canary Row Cat Food Cannery, three dozen boxes of plastic rose petals for Fauna's Faux Flora in New Fedora, and six barrels of premium salted peanuts going to the Pachymermian Embassy in Pazooza."

He sighed, stumbling inside the cockpit to find a map. "The only hard part's gonna be finding a way to all these places without circling back to Cape Suzette four times," he grumbled. He opened the glove compartment and felt around for the map, through the thick clutter of crumpled food wrappers and other junk; he reached in deep only to pull out a particularly curious object... a coconut bra, Baloo's size. Like a scalding hot potato, he threw _that _back in the compartment.

"Dangit, where'd that map go...?" Just as he stepped out onto the dock to go back into office, Tyler came walking around the corner, a sack of donuts in his hand.

"I brought these for your friend," he said. "I thought they might brighten his day a little... I do hope he's all right."

"He's doing a lot better, thanks," replied Kit, taking the donuts. "He's not here right now, but I'll make sure he gets 'em."

The two walked into Higher for Hire, chatting about all that had happened in the last day. Kit poked around behind Rebecca's desk until he finally found the map he was looking for. "Wildcat and I are just about to head out on some deliveries," he said.

"Well, I won't keep you," said Tyler. "Just tell Baloo, when you see him, that I wish him the best. I feel terrible about it, really."

"It's not like you could have stopped it. Baloo's kinda stubborn when it comes to bullies. I don't think there was much either of us could do."

Tyler nodded, and checked his wristwatch. "Well, I'd best be on my way, and let you get back to your work. I've got quite a bit to do today, myself. So, if I don't see you anytime soon, Kit, you take care."

"Yeah, see ya," Kit replied, shaking his hand. "And sorry 'bout your gold getting stolen and all. It doesn't happen _all _the time, trust me."

"Oh, I'm sure," Tyler chuckled. "But not another word about that. Besides, there's still a few adventures left in me. One of these days, I just might manage to sneak up on old Don Karnage and take it back." The gray fox waved curtly and went out the door.

"Give 'im my regards if you do." Kit started outside too, unfolding the map; but he suddenly stopped, blinking as if he just came out of a trance. He tossed the map aside and ran out the door. "Tyler! Wait!"

Tyler turned around, thinking something was wrong. "Kit? What's the matter?"

"Were you serious just now?"

"About what?"

"That gold box has gotta be worth a lot of money, right?"

"Indeed, and so is what's in it. But why-"

"And if were at all possible, would you be willing to go back after it?"

"Kit, Don Karnage has it now."

"I know, I'm just saying, if it were at all possible."

"I don't know... maybe. It's been done before, but it wasn't easy."

"Yeah, and no one's _ever _snuck in and out of the Iron Vulture like that."

"Thanks... but what are you getting at?"

"We could get it back. Right now!"

There was a bright, excited gleam in Kit's eyes that made Tyler start. He looked at Kit as if he were insane. "Come again?"

"Just hear me out," Kit said. "There are only a few places Don Karange stashes his most valuable loot-old art stuff like that gold case he got away with! I know every single one of them!"

Tyler blinked, then when it finally sank in what Kit was proposing, he half laughed, shaking his head. "Lad, before you get too excited about it-"

Kit interrupted him, "There's a room on Pirate Island where I'd bet bottom dollar he's put it. I could get us there, Tyler, I could find it!"

"Now wait just a moment here!" cried Tyler, grabbing Kit by the shoulders. "Catch your breath, will you? First of all, I'd never stand for it, so no. Secondly, what on earth do _you _want with the tome?"

"_I_ don't want it," Kit said. "But you said it's worth a fortune. So, if I help you get it back, we split its price right down the middle! Deal?"

"_Deal_? Kit, that's literally the most ludicrous idea I've ever heard, and believe me, I've heard quite a few! Now forget it!"

"Why not?" pressed Kit. "You're not _scared_, are you?"

Tyler put his hands on his waist, now just getting angry. "Do I even _need _to explain why not? Look here, lad, you might be an outgoing sort, but I'm afraid you're too young to realize how reckless your ambition is."

Kit seemed to slouch where he stood, a frown falling upon his brow. "It's... it's not reckless," he said with some unease. It was the only defense he could speak, even if a still, small voice of conscience told him he knew better. "We could do it. Wildcat would do the flying, and-"

"And what exactly do you think Rebecca and Baloo have to say?"

"Well, they..." Kit paused, suddenly glancing over his shoulder, where the tall apartment complex Rebecca lived faced him in the distance-he felt like he was being watched. "You _know _what they'd think," he admitted.

"Then I don't suppose I need to mention how thoughtless you're being of them."

"They'd just think it's too dangerous, that's all, but I-"

"And they'd be absolutely right! Why, the mere thought of gallivanting up to the air pirates and... and thinking you can just get away with, with...!" Tyler stopped himself, no longer finding the patience to argue. Instead, he cut to to the inevitable bottom line: "You're just a boy."

Kit looked at him as if he was surprised he even said that, then angrily turn his back on him, folding his arms.

As much as he knew he was only speaking reasonably, Tyler still felt sorry for hurting his feelings. "Look, lad, it's brave of you, but I hope you can understand..."

"No, you're right," Kit said, glumly. Then, with a sigh, he added, "Poor Miz Cunningham..."

"Miss Cunningham?" asked Tyler. "Why? There's something wrong with her?"

"Oh, no, not really," Kit replied, rather shyly. "Well, I _guess _not, anyway. The truth is, Tyler, I guess I need your help more than you need mine."

"Oh?"

Kit continued, "If you can get as much as you say you can for that artifact, well, we could really use the money. It could really help pay for..." He hesitated, then followed through with: "... the operation." He let out long, drawn-out sigh, hanging his head low. "I just want to help, that's all."

There was a moment of silence as Tyler walked up to Kit and laid his hand on his shoulder. "Oh, my. I never knew about any operation. Poor Rebecca... is it bad?"

"Yuh-huh," nodded Kit. "I shouldn't talk about it, though. She's entitled to her privacy."

"I must say, my heart is touched," said Tyler. "And when you put it so, I suppose I'm only left with one conclusion."

Kit looked up at him, his eyes wide and hopeful. "Yeah?"

"That you, my dear boy, are absolutely full of it."

"Aw," Kit scoffed. "I thought I might've laid it on a little thick. I was making myself queasy."

"A _little_, yes. You could have put it to music, for heaven's sake."

"Okay, then forget-"

"And no details because she's 'entitled to her privacy,' that was smooth!"

"All right, all right!" Kit said, throwing his hands in the air. "You win, I'll do it myself!"

Tyler blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Be sure to buy a paper tomorrow, _I'll _be on the front page."

"You're not seriously suggesting-lad, that's suicide!"

"Don't worry, it's no skin off your nose, is it?"

"You can't fly yourself to the pirates!"

"I've got Wildcat!"

"I'll-I'll-! Why, I'll tell Rebecca, right now!"

"She's not here!"

"Then I'll telephone her house!"

"You don't know the number!"

"I'll look it up!"

"She's not listed!"

Tyler pulled his fedora down over his brow, as if a sudden gush of steam was going to blow it sky-high. "Will you stop trying to drive me bonkers! It's not going to work!"

"Just tell me one thing," said Kit. "Wouldn't you like to get your hands on that gold again? Honestly?'

"Well _of course _I would," Tyler replied, huffily. "But you're not hearing me at all!"

"And tell me you wouldn't like to show Karnage up again to get it back."

"La-ad..."

"You can't say you wouldn't."

"It doesn't mean I have a fancy for knocking on his door and asking for it back."

"Look, maybe you think I'm just a kid with some big imagination, but I'm _telling _you. I _can _help you get it back."

"I'm sorry, but I don't have anymore time for-"

"I know more about the pirates than anyone," Kit said. "I _know _it's not impossible. I'd be stupid to think it's not risky at all, but... sometimes an opportunity come that's never gonna come again, and if you miss it, it's gone for good."

Tyler was speechless for beat, finally, at last last point, unable to disagree. Kit kept on, "You're never gonna see it again, Tyler, _never_. Not without my help. Not unless we do something about it right now."

Tyler absently hesitated, which for his side of the argument was the worst possible thing he could have done. With the slightest chance of victory in his grasp, Kit pounced on the opportunity like a hungry tiger on a crippled elk.

"I _know _you want to, Tyler!"

"Wh-what? No! Absolutely not!" With that, Tyler finally turned corner around Higher for Hire, out of the boy's sight before the most ludicrous idea he had ever heard began to sound good. "Now good day!"

But he didn't get very far, as Kit quickly cut in front of him, grinning broadly. "Yeah, you _do_!"

"No, I _don't_."

"Yeah!"

"No!"

"Yeah!"

"_No_!" Tyler pulled his fedora snugly over his brow and brushed Kit out of his way. "Forget it, Kit, it's not going to happen!"

**

* * *

**

"I can't believe this is happening," Tyler moaned, as he looked out from the Sea Duck's passenger window at the cliffs of Cape Suzette shrinking in the distance.

Behind him and Wildcat, Kit knelt on the cockpit floor, reading over a spread-out map with his compasses. He 'graciously' offered Tyler the navigator's seat for coming along. "Just relax, we're gonna do fine. Wildcat, go ahead and turn directly South-Southeast. We'll fly that heading for about an hour."

"All right, Kit," Wildcat replied. "But if we're late on our deliveries, Miz Cunningham's gonna get mad and shake her finger, and say, 'Baloo, you lazy bum you, how could you be late again'... 'cept she wouldn't say 'Baloo,' 'cause he's not here."

Tyler gave him a strange look, then glanced back at Kit, gesturing for him to come close. "Ehm, he's all right, isn't he?" he whispered.

"Of course," Kit replied. "Great guy and a good pilot."

"And you _did _tell him where we're going, right?"

"Sure-kind of. I told him its an area that will probably have pirates hanging around, and that we need to be super-careful." Though he downplayed the dangerous aspect of their plan, Kit had explained to Wildcat the basics, that Tyler was a friend of theirs, and in need of a favor. For a good soul like Wildcat, that much alone was enough to convince him to comply.

"Don't worry about Miz Cunningham," Kit said to Wildcat. "I think she's gonna be _real _pleased when we get back."

"Pleased... or mad as a hornet," said Tyler. "I expect the latter. And she'll have every right to be, in my opinion. How did I ever let you talk me into this?"

"Re-_lax_. We'll be back home so fast, she won't have time to get mad."

Tyler sighed, and decided that if he was going to go through with this, he might as well try to take the lad's advice and relax a little. "Well, I suppose I've made my bed and will have to lie in it now. How big is this place, anyway?"

"Well, it's got a parking garage big enough for the Iron Vulture," Kit said. "But bigger means it's easier to sneak around in. All we gotta do is keep low, and they'll never know we're there." He stood between the pilot seats and watched though the windshield, as the plane veered ever upward above the ocean. A devious smirk crossed his face as he thought. "I _told _Karnage he wouldn't get away with it."

Cockily, he buffed the tips of his fingertips across his chest, and glanced at Tyler. "See? You're pretty lucky to know a guy with inside tips on the pirates."

"Yes," drawled Tyler, "if I could just count all these blessings."

"So how long do you think it'll be before you can cash in on the gold?" Kit asked, somewhat suddenly.

Tyler frowned, scolding him with his eyes. "Kit, instead of just the monetary value of it, can you in _any way _appreciate the great historic significance of such an artifact?"

"Uh, sure," Kit said, though the uncertainty in his tone was hardly concealed.

"Well, to answer your question, it won't be right away. The tome is a guide-not so much of a map-and my colleagues and I have agreed not to disclose its information until _after _we've sought its destination ourselves."

"Oh," replied Kit, though by the absent grin on his face and distant stare in his eyes, his thoughts were obviously elsewhere.

"What are you thinking about?" asked Tyler.

"That I bet 'great historic significance' means lotsa round numbers."

Tyler shook his head, but at length, Kit's glowing confidence proved contagious. "I wouldn't be going this far for pocket change."

"Wow... who ya gonna sell it too?"

"Well, there are many collectors out there... but Shere Khan will undoubtedly be the highest bidder. He even purchased the one we lifted from the Iron Vulture last year."

Kit nodded, but he looked puzzled. "That's strange, though. I never really pictured him to be into that kinda thing."

"Oh? What kind of thing?" Tyler asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, you know... really old stuff like that. Maybe I can understand wanting it because its gold... but the things you find in a museum, what can you do with them besides look at them, right?"

"Well, you can smell 'em, too," Wildcat commented. "But I wouldn't take 'em in the bathtub!"

Tyler ignored him and handed Kit a look that had 'heretic' written all over it. "Kit, we don't dig up ordinary slabs of rock out there. You really _do _have a lot to learn."

Kit just shrugged.

"I've had the mundane pleasure of being inside Shere's office once, in the middle of a small jungle of lovely carnivorous plants that he keeps as pets," said Tyler. "They're imported from the Atronador Basin, where they're not uncommon. I couldn't help but wonder why he chose that kind of decor."

"Don't they suit his charming personality?"

"Well, yes, but _besides _that," said Tyler. "He's Felocian, at least I think he is. If so, his ancestors were the very same people who founded Rhamastan. My friend Bagheera's the same, actually. Like me, born and raised in Oxfurry, but he's Felocian by blood."

"Then it's kind of like a family history for him?"

"In a way, though we'd be fools to think his interest is based solely on some sort of ancestral nostalgia... perhaps a _little_, but to know Shere Khan is to be certain he has a motive driven by profit. He has an industrial angle I'm sure he's been sharpening his claws for many years now."

"Like what, selling replicas of artifacts?" asked Kit.

"No, the firestone," said Tyler. "I told you he bought the sample that was found, and I'm dead certain that's what he's after. Now, I never had much to do with Shere myself, but I have a few acquaintances who have, acquaintances who would know some of his more secretive operations. Come to find out, his corporation spent over a million dollars over the years trying to clone the firestone's energy. There was even a rumor they succeeded once, but in an electrical fashion... highly unstable, an extraordinary power source... I'm not sure whatever became of it all, though."

As he listened to Tyler explain, Kit had a sudden sinking feeling in his belly. He thought of the ruby-like sub-atomic electrical amplifier ('the stone', as it was called) that Don Karnage had managed to steal and used to power his vicious lightning gun, the weapon that once nearly brought Cape Suzette to ruin. "I don't believe it," he whispered to himself.

Tyler happened to hear him. "Well, trust me, no hard feelings on my part if you don't."

"No, I mean I _do _believe it," said Kit. "Were you there the night the pirates got passed the cliff guns?"

"I wasn't there, but I remember it being in the news. Why?"

As the Sea Duck flew further into the open horizon, Kit told the tale of Don Karnage's scheme, the construction of the lightning weapon, the fate of the stone, and his part in it all. Tyler was astonished. "You practically saved the entire city single-handedly!"

Kit began to laugh. "Lots of times! I might have had a little help from Baloo, too."

"We gonna be there soon, Kit?" asked Wildcat.

"Pretty soon, I'll let you know." Kit dug in his sweater for his pocket watch and checked the time. Then, for a while, he knelt back down with the map with a pencil and studiously thought over the remaining leg of their trip. Tyler would glance back to watch him work, noting how peculiar it was that he was so unworried. There was a confident glow about him, as if for him the sun was shining a little bit brighter, the ocean was sparkling a little more clearly, and the whole world was going his way.

**

* * *

**

Kit warned Wildcat to lose altitude and fly the rest of the way as low as he could. Beneath them, the deep-blue ocean surrendered its luster and was steadily fading into a grayish shadow, and before them the formerly-crisp horizon was blurred in a dark haze. Tiny, jet-black rock islands began to bare themselves from the water's surface, sparsely at first, but they became more frequent as they flew along.

"We're close," Kit said, as he carefully watched out the window, studying the rocks as if he were trying to somehow read them. "Okay, now slow her down a bit, Wildcat."

Meanwhile, Tyler was looking over the map and the route Kit had penciled in. "Whereabouts are we now, lad?"

"I marked it with a circle," Kit replied, not turning his attention away from the rocks.

Tyler held the map closer to his face, even squinting. "But there's nothing in your circle here... not even a speck of land."

"It's not _on _the map. No one with any sense has any business being out here, anyway. Trust me, you can only find this place if you know how... that's what makes it the perfect hideout."

"Um... oh." Tyler leaned toward the side window, finding nothing but confusion in the endless sea and strange black islands. "Pardon my ignorance, but how _do _you find it?"

"It's a lot easier when you're not trying to hide," said Kit. "Basically, if any pirate got lost out here, he can tell where he's at by finding certain rocks..."

To their ten o'clock position, three jagged formations stretched upward from the water, like spires from the depths of the sea. "There," Kit pointed, "I remember those! Fly right over them, Wildcat. As soon as we're passed, turn exactly due West. Then it's just fifteen more miles."

As the Sea Duck ventured further, the foggy mist creeping above the ocean crests grew thicker. They could not see more than a few miles ahead. "Not a very pleasant atmoshpere, is it," remarked Tyler. "Spooky, even. Somehow it seems so appropriate."

"It'll get more appropriate in a minute," Kit said.

Shortly, as they passed through an opaque bank of fog, secluded clusters of larger rocks began to fade into their sights, and then from the mist there sprang an enormous maze of rocky islands-sharp, jagged hills that spread over the sea like shards of broken glass. The winding labyrinth of valleys between them were dangerously narrow, and covered under the weight of heavy shadows. Amidst it all, a lone mountain stood high before them.

"There it is, Wildcat," said Kit. "Just aim for the big one."

The mountain, a volcano, was by far the largest and most ominous part of the area; its slopes were sheer and reached far above the ocean into a crooked peak.

Tyler leaned forward in his seat, taking a more careful observation. Pine trees and other shrubbery grew sparsely near its base, but it had very little shore to speak of-the volcano itself was the entire island. "Kit, there's no inhabitable land down there. Where on earth are we going?"

"Right down there," Kit told Wildcat, pointing ahead to a particular gap between the twisting rocks. "There's a way inside there... it's hidden, but don't worry, it's safe."

"In-inside?" Tyler suddenly stammered, not quite believing what he had just heard. "We're landing _inside _a volcano?"

"Wo-how-ow!" Wildcat marveled. "I've never been inside a volcano before. You guys bring any marshmallows?"

"For crying out loud, Kit, a _volcano._ You never said anything about that."

"What'd you expect?"

"Well, an _island._ Sandy beaches, trees... maybe a lagoon."

"And little straw huts? They're _pirates_, not headhunters."

Tyler let out a long breath. "Perhaps, but for the record, the fewer surprises I have, the happier I'll be."

Kit nudged him on the arm, donning that same, ever-confident, 'I-know-what-I'm-doing' grin. "Have a little faith, will ya?"

**

* * *

**

Just as Kit said would happen, they flew in low and came to a stretch of quiet, open water at the foot of the volcano, where there was a cave just wide enough for the Sea Duck to float into. Two opposite rows of skinny, curved, spire-like rocks rose from the water and bent inward on either side of it, a morbid archway that marked the entrance. As the sea Duck touched down, Tyler sat still and trance-like, counting the odd-shaped formations. "They look like claws, don't they," he said quietly, somewhat spooked. "Or like old bones, there to remind the beholder of death, doom, and decay."

Kit scowled at him, not wanting him to scare Wildcat. "There're no ghosts here, Tyler. It's just a bunch of rock."

Slowly, the Sea Duck floated into the cave's black mouth. As it did, Tyler pressed his nose against the side window, taking a final look at the volcano's exterior, from where its slopes seemed to rise forever into the sky.

Inside, the cavern was vast and unlit, and they were at the mercy of the afternoon sunlight to find a spot to moor the plane. Dull, reflected shades of green light bounced from the water onto the stony walls and ceiling around them. Upon Kit's prompting, Wildcat stopped the plane and cut the engines along a makeshift dock made of flat stones. Just ahead of them, the water they floated on suddenly dropped out of sight, leaving a long, deep, and empty stretch of space between them and the farthest wall.

Tyler was the first to step out of the plane. "I must admit, seeing this place, I wouldn't know of a more fitting piece of real estate for pirates." The first thing he did was walk toward the mysterious waterfall, and peer over the edge into a bottomless abyss. No splashes were heard from below.

"We'll be on our way out of here before you know it," Kit said. He grabbed a flashlight from under the navigator's chair and jumped out onto the rocks. Before Wildcat could get out, he stopped him. "Wait a minute, Wildcat. Remember, bad guys might be hanging around, okay? You better stay here and keep a lookout."

Wildcat nodded knowingly, a sly look in his eyes as if he had just been handed a top secret mission from headquarters. "Oh, right, lookout!" He jumped back in his seat and scanned the area dramatically.

Kit went over to Tyler, who still stared over the cliff. "What are you looking at? We gotta get moving!"

Tyler stepped back, slowly. "Forgive me... it's just I've never seen anything quite like it."

"You've never seen a waterfall before?"

"Not in the middle of the ocean," he replied. "I wonder, when I've been in a lot of unpleasant and dangerous places, with skulls and spears and spider webs aplenty, why does _this _place give me the creeps?"

"Well, if you're interested in the grand tour, I can show you a few sunny spots where you can get a nice tan in the afternoon. _Or _we can just hurry up and get what we came after."

"Right. Lead the way."

At a jogging pace, Kit led Tyler to the nearest tunnel path. "We hafta go through here. Watch your step, there's a lot of booby-traps set in some of these places. That's why I didn't want Wildcat coming-"

Tyler held out his arm and stopped the boy in his tracks. "Booby-traps? Once again, Kit, you said _nothing_ about traps."

"Don't sweat it, they're all triggered on the floor. Just step where I step and we'll be fine."

"Oh? Just tell me, how long has it been since you've last been here?"

"I dunno, almost a year, I guess. Why?"

"And did you ever stop to think that maybe, just _maybe _they might have added or rearranged said traps?"

Kit shrugged away from him and walked on. "You worry too much."

"Oh, well, why worry. I'm only blindly venturing inside a dark, trap-laden volcano with possibly dozens of blood-thirsty pirates around any corner, and my only hope is trusting the memory of a twelve-year-old who hasn't stepped foot on the premises for a year. Silly me."

Shortly, as they went further into the dim corridors, the air grew warm and stuffier, and the smell of smoke and sulfur became nauseatingly apparent. Up ahead, where the passage ended, the walls were illuminated with a fiery orange light. They came to the edge of another wide cavern, where down from the cliff they stood on, glowing molten lava flowed slowly through the gaping cracks in the ground.

The only means across the cavern was a series of large, flat rocks that would have to be giant stepping stones, though they were wide apart and would require great leaps to each one; there were six of them, the first three suspended mid-air by ropes staked in the walls, and the last three were balanced upon great stalactite stone pillars. Flames jumped high from the lava, sometimes enough to lick the bottom of the rocks, and occasionally high enough to threaten the integrity of the ropes.

"_What _is all this?"

"The reason nobody ever bothers using the back way," Kit said. He saw that the second rock had half of its supporting ropes severed, and remembered that happening when he and Baloo had come that very route to once save the kidnaped Rebecca and Molly. "Watch the second jump... we're gonna have to be light on our feet." The blur of the smoke and bright fire made it difficult to see for certainty if any others were broken as well.

"You're telling me there's no other way?"

"There's a couple of ways, but it'll take too long to go around, and we'll probably get spotted. Right now jumping over the lava is the _safest _way."

"I might have known," Tyler mumbled. "What purpose does such a dangerous passage serve them, anyhow?"

"I heard it's supposed to be for emergencies, like if they were ever forced to enter or leave the hideout in secret. It was all set up long before I was ever here."

"They put an awful lot of work into it, I see, but those ropes don't look very strong."

"Strong enough," said Kit, "but we'll have to hurry. And be careful with the last step, too... it's a wobbly one."

The two made sure their hats were on snugly, and together made a running leap onto the first rock. There was hardly an instant to breathe before they had to jump again, then again. They cleared the rocks hung on the ropes, yet on their fifth leap Kit came up too short and nearly fell backwards into the burning lake below; he caught onto Tyler's pantleg just in the nick of time. Though he didn't fall, it proved to be a detrimental mistake, for it caused Tyler to stumble as well, and he fell to one knee, while pulling Kit toward the center to make sure he was safe from the edge.

"Lad, you all right?"

Kit nodded, but knew they were both in trouble, as the rock swayed and rolled, and below them hisses of steam beckoned for it to fall. They were in the middle of the gorge, with but two jumps to go, yet the end still seemed like a mile away.

"It'll hold! It'll hold!" cried Kit. "But we better move!"

"All right, you first," said Tyler. "Easy now!"

With Tyler balancing himself in the center, Kit leapt onto the last rock, and Tyler followed close behind, but despite Kit's 'last step' warning, it took Tyler by complete surprise. It wobbled so dangerously under their feet that he fell to his face and sprawled out, almost knocking Kit over.

"Tyler! Are you okay?"

"Jolly good!" he croaked. When the saucer-shaped stone finally leveled out again, he yelled out, "You first again, lad! Hurry!"

Once Kit was safely on the other side, Tyler darted from his knees and leapt, and tripped over an untied shoelace at the last second. He came just short and hit the ledge chest-first, knocking the wind out of himself. Behind him, there was a crumbling sound, and warm air whooshed down his back, then a loud crashing noise from far below. The last rock had fallen into the pit.

Kit grabbed his arms and helped him up. "Are you okay _now_?"

"I think so," Tyler coughed. "Let that be a lesson... always check your shoelaces before you jump over fiery chasms."

"If I ever wear shoes, sure." As the fox brushed himself off, Kit noticed a strange trail of smoke rising from his backside. "Uh, your tail okay?"

"Huh? _Yeow_!" Tyler quickly batted away at a spot of smoldering fur, where the white tip of his tail was now charred black. "Lovely," he sneered.

The two stood for a moment at the edge of the gorge, looking into the flames, and where the last rock used to be. Then Kit spoke what was plainly on their minds: "We might not be coming back this way."

"Yes, but in terms of danger, how much does that set us back?"

"Well, it's hard to say," said Kit. "I'm just looking on the bright side right now."

"Which is?"

"That Karnage is gonna be sore as all get-out when he finds out he'll need a new rock. Come on."

The next passage was dark, with unlit torches stuck in fixtures on its wall. Kit turned on the flashlight and hurried around a corner, with Tyler trying to follow right behind him while keeping a close eye on their surroundings.

Kit halted just as the floor suddenly became tiled ahead of them, scores of stepping stones cut and placed into the ground in a pattern like that of a turtle's shell. "See how some of them are a lighter color than the others? Don't step on those. The floor's rigged with some pretty painful stuff."

Tyler nodded and they began hopping their way across, but Kit's feet were lighter and quicker over the stones. "Lad, slow down a bit," said the fox, who was trying to keep a careful watch over both their footsteps.

"No sweat, I know this place like the back of my hand!"

"Perhaps, but you also have the flashlight."

"Oh, yeah." Kit stopped and cast the light Tyler's way, so he could see. "Sorry."

"Much obliged," he replied, but as he caught up, Kit was already impatiently stepping backwards. "Kit, watch your step!"

"Look, don't worry about me. I told ya, I know every-"

"Kit! Look out!" Tyler's heart skipped a beat as Kit's left heel accidently kicked over a short, hidden lever that barely stuck out of the ground. There was a loud click from above them, and Tyler jumped and tackled Kit to the ground just as three long spikes suddenly thrust forth from their side.

When the dust settled, and the spikes began to retracted into the wall, Tyler felt for his missing hat about his head and they rolled out of harms way. "For heaven's sakes, Kit," he scowled. When he found his fedora at his feet, he saw it had a new hole in the top. "Eight years and bloody lot of travels with this hat, and never a scratch on it."

Kit had a hard time looking him in the eye. "I... I, uh... _that _one was new," he said, with embarrassment glowing on his face. "Thanks."

"Yes, well, as the acting responsible adult in our group, I think it'd be appropriate to set a few ground rules before we continue."

"Ground rules? Like what?"

"For instance, you stick close to me at all times. None of this getting-too-far-ahead business."

"Yeah, no problem." Kit was about to continue walking on before more rules were announced, but Tyler stopped him on his first step.

"Ah, just one more thing."

"What?"

"I'll take the flashlight, too."

"Fine," Kit sighed, impatiently, and handed over the flashlight.

Further down the way, they came to a stop where the passage branched out into three different directions. They took the route on the left, and Kit gestured that they needed to keep quiet from then on.

There were no traps down that particular hall, but it was dark, and Tyler had switched the flashlight off so they wouldn't be noticed. They hugged the wall until they came close to the end, where there was another passage perpendicular to them. This one was lit with rows of electric lamps, and distantly they could hear noises and indistinct voices. The pirates were home.

Not knowing how close there were, or how many-if it even mattered-Tyler grew uneasy about the risk they were taking. They stopped near the end of the hall, far enough from the light so that they were still in cover. Kit glanced back at his companion, and noticed how worried he looked. "It's gonna be okay. You've done this before. The Iron Vulture, remember?"

"Yes, I remember," he said. "But at the time, my companion was hundreds of pounds heavier and had assault training. No offense, that is."

"None taken, but even old ogre-face wouldn't do you any help in here."

Some of the voices drew closer, accompanied by the squeaking of a rolling wheelbarrow.

"Cripes, someone's coming."

"Back here," Tyler said, and they withdrew behind a shadowy crevice in the wall.

Two pirates, engaged in a heated argument, pushed the empty wheelbarrel down the hall without the slightest heed of any intruders. They did, of course, have much more pressing issues on thier minds:

"The only reason I lost the race was 'cause you stepped on my roach!" one growled angrily.

"Aw, give it a rest," the other retorted. "I caught ya this mornin' trying to set fire to mine!"

"Yeah, but it wasn't durin' the race! Have some flippin' decency, will ya?"

When things had quieted, Kit poked his head out to make sure the coast was clear. "Come on," he whispered. "It's not far from here."

Shortly thereafter, they came to an open space with a fine oriental rug thrown over the floor. The walls where lined up with countless stacks of gold coins, some vases and bottles, and closed treasure chests.

"Unbelievable," Tyler breathed. "There must be thousands of dollars in gold alone in this room."

He was just about to open one of the treasure chests, but Kit suddenly grabbed him. "No!" he hissed loudly. "Don't open or close _anything_. Don't _pick up _anything. And don't step on the rug, either." He pointed to the ceiling, which was dressed end-to-end with nets and weights. "It's all rigged to an alarm."

Just around the corner, a heavy red curtain blocked the rest of the way. "This is it," said Kit. "There's more stuff behind here."

"A mere curtain?" Tyler wondered aloud. "Not even as much as a locked safe?"

"There's no need. The pirates may be a bunch of crooks, but they never steal from themselves. And anyone else trying to sneak in here would've set off a trap long before making it this far. Now, just give me a second... you better keep a lookout."

Kit knelt down and felt behind the left side of the curtain, where there was a trip-cord wrapped around a descretely-placed switch on the wall, and was the last bastion of security Don Karnage had put in place before someone could pry into his own personal bank account. Once the cord was carefully loosed, Kit held open the curtain. "After you!"

Tyler ducked inside, and was awestruck by the fortune the pirates had collected in their years of plunder. In the middle of the floor was a six-foot stack of gold bars, and set among several crates and cabinets were thousands of sparkling doubloons and barrels full of currencies from various nations. Tyler was most surprised to see several artworks from the centuries; there were at least a dozen priceless vases, swords with jewel-encrusted hilts, a stack of paintings leaning against the wall in the far corner, and an ancient marble statue of a female figure; some of her face was chipped and worn away, and she was missing one arm, but the other was intact and outstretched. She was draped with a red velvet coat and some other fine clothes from colonial times, including a wide-brimmed hat (with a Jolly Roger patch and a black feather on its crown) that slanted down over her brow.

"That's-that's the Vixen De Milo," Tyler gasped. "It was stolen by sea marauders over a hundred years ago, and hasn't been seen since-and they're using it for a hat rack!"

Kit began poking around the room right away for the golden artifact they had come after; he didn't seem very impressed by all the treasure in the room, but then again, he had seen most of it before.

"It's just some fancy old pirate gear," he said. "I think it's the only thing Karnage collects besides his 'Wanted' posters."

"I don't see any of those around."

"I've found them under his bed before. And don't ask, 'cause I don't know."

As Kit hurried around the room, opening cabinet after cabinet, and peeking inside all the barrels and chests, Tyler pulled open a large chest which was full of more gold coins, pearls, and jewels. "Oh my," he exhaled, and pulled out several long strings of glistening pearls. "You would know, lad... what do the pirates _do _with all this?"

"Well, the crew spends their cut on a good time whenever they can. Then some of it pays the bills."

"Bills? You're kidding."

"Nope. Karnage would _love _to hoard it all, but he can't. The second mate once told me that it's like running a big business around here. Anything they haven't stolen enough of, they have to barter for somewhere. Like gas, or bullets. Sometimes food."

Under a white sheet, there was a box-shaped object placed on top of a crate, and it was just the right size. "Ah-ha!" exclaimed K it. He yanked off the sheet, but to his chargin, it was just a lousy shoe box. "What in-_bottlecaps_?" Kit threw the sheet down and sighed. "Crud."

"It couldn't be more than a few hundred pounds," Tyler absently muttered of the Vixen De Milo, as he stuffed his pockets with pearls. "It couldn't be _impossible _to sneak it out of here..."

Kit ignored him and gave the room another good scan, but one particular golden case was not to be found. "It's... not here."

"Are there no other rooms like this one nearby?" asked Tyler. He kneeled down to check between all the larger objects, but to no avail.

"No," Kit replied, glumly. "Gosh, I'm sorry, Tyler. I thought for sure it'd be in here, with all this other stuff."

"Think hard for a second, lad. We've come an awful long way to go home with our hands empty." His trouser pockets jingled with coins when he moved. "Well, save for a few stocking stuffers. You're certain there's not a secret passage or hidden vault around here?"

Kit shook his head. He took a handful of gold coins and observed them, then a look of spite crossed his face, and he stuffed the coins inside his sweater. "_Who's _going home empty handed? I said there were a _few _places Karnage might keep it. Look, he's got his own wing on the other side of the island... that's where we'll go."

"The _other _side? Oh no, absolutely not. We'd never make it past all those thugs."

"Sure we can, I promise," said Kit. "We're gonna find it."

"Kit, trust me, there's nothing I'd like more than to shop around this lovely place all day, but I'm afraid that's out of the ques-Kit? Kit, wait a minute!"

"Just follow me, and keep your head down!"

Kit was already on the other side of the curtain before Tyler could stop him, and by the time he ran out after him, Kit was around the corner. Begrudgingly, he raced after him, since it was the only thing he could do-he could not yell further commands because the pirates might have heard. "Of all the nerve," he fumed.

Deeper down the corridor, where an intersection was cluttered with a maze of big crates, Kit heard the voices of a couple of the pirates from the adjecent hall, muttering and laughing. He snuck behind a niche between crates and kept still; he couldn't see them behind all the boxes, but they weren't more than a few feet away.

"Okay, okay, I got one," a pirate said. "A penguin walks into a bar with a leprechaun on his head and a three-foot salami in his arms ..."

"Yeah? Go on."

"Yeah, so anyway... uh... lessee... penguin says, uh... ah, I forget. The penguin ends up getting shot at the end. It's a riot!"

The other chuckled. "Heh heh... dead penguin."

"Come on, gimme a hand with this dumb crate. The ship's takin' off pretty soon."

"Yeah, yeah. Criminy, I'm sick of movin' these things all the way down there. What's goin' on that's so hot, anyway?"

"The boss got his hands on somethin' important. You know about that fancy box he's holdin'?"

"I heard, but he ain't let no one near it. What gives?"

"Sadie told me it's solid gold, but there's more. There's supposed to be a lot more where it came from, like the mother-load of all stinkin' treasures! We're gonna be rollin' in it pretty soon!"

"Ha ha, yeah!"

Kit waited as the two pirates finally made their way down the hall. On their way, one asked, "Uh... rollin' in what, dis time?"

"Ugh, geez. Yer a moron, ya know it?"

Once they were far enough, Kit tip-toed out from the crates. He was just about to dash ahead when he was suddenly grabbed by his ear.

"Whoa, boy!"

"Ow! What's the big idea, Tyler?"

"No running off, remember? We're not about to trek up and down Pirate Island. It's too dangerous."

"What are you, my dad now?"

Tyler's eyes narrowed angrily. "_Acting responsible adult_," he said through gritted teeth. "Out of the two of us, _I'm _not the twelve-year-old."

"You're also the guy who doesn't know anything about this place," Kit snapped back, but an unexpected furious scowl from his companion forced a quick apology. "I didn't mean it like that. I think it's time for plan 'B'."

"Plan 'B'? When was there a plan 'B'? I don't even know what all plan 'A' was! That's not good!"

"I just heard what those guys were saying," said Kit. "Karnage figures the gold box isn't the only piece of treasure he might get his hands on."

"_That_ I thought we already knew, lad."

"Right! And right now, I bet it's all he's thinking about. He hasn't let it out of sight because he's been busy scheming up a plan to get to the _big _stuff. We find Karnage, we find our gold."

"Find _Karnage_? I suppose you think you're going to take it right out of his hands?"

"You kidding? I could pedal circles around him on a unicycle while juggling _tuna fish _and he wouldn't notice."

"Good heavens, are you out of your-!" Tyler suddenly lost his voice, and his eyes shone of dire alarm as he glanced over the crates, catching a glimpse of a huge, menacing figure lumbering towards them. Before Kit could even think of asking what was wrong, Tyler had clamped his hand over his mouth and pulled him low to the ground. "Somebody's here," he said shakily, in barely a whisper.

Though Kit couldn't see the approaching pirate, he soon knew who it was. The smell of gunpowder, the heavy breathing, the sound of claws scratching on tree bark (though it was only his hide), and a lot of sniffing were telltale signs that Hacksaw had caught the scent of something of interest.

Hacksaw stopped just short of the crates and took another big whiff. "Mmm... goodies!"

Kit and Tyler looked at each other and shrugged, then a thought suddenly popped into Kit's head. He reached inside his sweater and dug out half of a chocolate chip cookie (he considered it an emergency stash). Quickly he set the cookie on top of one of the crates, then ducked back down.

After one final sniff, and Hacksaw spotted the chocolatey sustenance. "Ahh! There you are!" He gobbled it down and walked away, blissfully clueless as ever, humming what was possibly a rendition of _Pennies from Heaven_, though it was as melodic as the bark of a sick sea lion.

Tyler let out a big sigh, as if it were the first breath he'd drawn in hours. "I don't even want to _know _how you figured out that one."

"It's okay. We gotta move fast before they take off with the goods."

Kit was ready to plunge further inside the island, but Tyler was not about to budge. On one knee, he slouched against a crate for a moment, staring at the ground as if the cracks in it were clearing his mind. By the time he stood up, he had come to a decision. "Wait, lad... if you've heard the expression 'cold feet', mine are blocks of ice right now, and all too late, I admit. This was a mistake all along. We've risked enough already, and I know when I'm licked. If we leave now, and I ride with you on your deliveries, I'm sure we'll have enough time to figure out a terrific alibi to tell your employer."

"You can't mean that," said Kit. "You just don't know them like I do, that's all. You don't want to turn back _now_." He tugged on his arm to get him to follow again. "We're too close!"

"Look at it this way-our very lives just may have been spared by a _cookie_. It's not possible to temp fate any further than that."

"We'll see about that..." Kit started off again, but was once again caught by the ear. "Ow! Will you _quit _that?"

"_No_," Tyler replied harshly. "I'm not going one step further. We'll be captured for sure."

"Well, what if _you _went back to the plane, and I go-"

Tyler cut him off. "And _you _go end up missing? For something you know practically nothing about, no less, while _also _risking the safety of your perfectly trusting friend, who's still down there waiting for us like a sitting duck. If anything happened to either of you, let alone _me_, just because we were foolish enough to come here... well, need I say more?"

"But if I can just get one shot at it, that's all I... I..." There was that 'acting responsible adult' look again, and Kit was having the hardest time bargaining around it. "It's just that we're already here. We're so close."

Resigned, Tyler sat against a crate. "I know... trust me, _I know_. I wish there was a way. When the pirates ran off with the tome, I felt a good portion of my life's work went along for the ride."

"And Karange is just going to get away with it... just like he always does." The idea of ditching Tyler and search anyway did not go unthought of, but he felt in his conscience that the fox was right. Kit had played many a dangerous task by ear before, but stealing something from Karnage's very presence without being detected would be quite a magic trick. If they were discovered, even if they made it back to the Sea Duck, Wildcat was hardly the seasoned pilot Baloo was to escape a swarm of attack planes.

"There's nothing we can do," said Tyler.

Before he thought of a way back to the plane, Kit waited a few beats, hoping there would suddenly be a new, bright idea that would dawn on either of them and solve everything. "But what if we _can _do it?"

Tyler shook his head and shrugged.

"Well, all right, then," Kit said, reluctantly. "I guess we'll go around and through the hangar. There aren't going to be a lot of places to hide until we get there, so if someone comes, we might have to run back this way."

"Right. You lead the way." Just before Kit started off, Tyler haulted him once more. "I'm trusting you to get all three of us out of here without a scratch. Right now that's not an easy thing for me to do. No stunts, got it?"

Kit shrugged away from him, a bit offended. "I got it, already. You're kind of a mother hen, aren't you?"

"Better to be a mother hen than a cooked goose."

The corridors sounded quiet and empty, although not entirely silent. They climbed over the crates and stole further into the heart of the island, toward the busy noises from the great interior bay where the Iron Vulture was moored.

Kit suddenly stopped for a moment and looked up at Tyler. "Okay, 'cooked goose'? That was awful."

"Oh, bloody," Tyler grumbled. "Just move on, shall we?"

They hurried through the next passage, until moments later they came to turn in their path, where Kit halted and crouched down to take a peek around the corner. They could hear a lot of commotion... more pirates were close by... too many, and too close.

"Is it bad?" asked the fox. "Do you see any of them?"

"It's perfect, let's go!"

Just around the corner was a circular archway where several more crates were stacked nearby on the other side. Outside of the corridor, the area had suddenly dropped back into a shourd of dimness, and there was plenty of shadow to hide in behind the crates.

The cavern they were in was dark, immense, and smelled of sea water and gun powder. Tyler glanced up and noticed he could no longer see a ceiling. Shouts from the pirates and mechanical activity echoed loudly throughout.

"This is gonna be the tricky part," Kit said, close to Tyler's ear. "We need to get to the other side... there's a tunnel there that'll take us back to the Sea Duck."

"The other side...?" Tyler poked his head out and took a good look at their predicament. The first thing to catch his attention was the Iron Vulture, floating in the still water. It's beak-shaped prow was open and drawn against the shore, where the pirates were going in and out of it, restocking the airship with loads of ammunition, plane parts, and many other goods, which were piled up in crates all over the cove. Massive flood lights, perched from an observation cliff, spotted the airship and the ground before it.

"Almost everyone's down here," said Kit. "They're busting their humps to get their ship ready, too... I hate to tell you, but I think we know where they're going."

"My thoughts exactly," frowned Tyler.

Kit scooted on the ground between two boxes and surveyed the path to their exit tunnel. Bandit Patch and Sadie were not far in front of him, jawing and relaxing against the barrels they were likely supposed to be moving to the ship. It was dimly lit there, and they were far enough from the rest of the crew so that no one had noticed they were not pulling their weight. Until the Iron Vulture was ready to move, neither were they.

"We're blocked off for now, so I think we better cool our heels here for a while. Wildcat's gonna to be fine as long as we're not caught, and if we wait until they're done, we'll have a lot less goons to sneak around."

"I agree, actually," said Tyler. "At this rate we mightn't have much of a delay... but what of the rest of the way, lad? Anything cautionary you can remember?"

"A couple more traps here and there, but nothing worse than before."

Tyler huddled between the boxes next to Kit and watched the pirates go to and fro all over the area. It was not all that unentertaining either, like the moment where Mad Dog dropped a spare airplane propeller on Dumptruck's foot. Tyler kept a careful, vigilant eye on all he could see, quite unlike the boy who guided him there.

He found it odd how Kit could sit so nonchalantly given where they were and who they were around. He appeared concerned, thinking about something, but hardly paying attention to anything going on around him.

"Are you all right? You look lost."

"No, I'm fine. I'm just not looking forward to getting my ears pinned back when I get home... I just don't know how I'm going to explain any of this."

"Is that right? _I _for one think you ought to be more concerned about more present urgencies, like being torn inside-out by these brutes if we're caught."

"_You've _never been yelled at by Miz Cunningham."

"Whatever the case may be, you knew the risks _before _we left."

"I know, but still, I'd explain a lot easier if I went back rich."

"Well, if I could thank you for one good thing that's come of this little detour, it's knowing their intentions. They're going to have at least a day's head-start in Alpacatan."

"What are you gonna do about it?"

"Well, I... I don't know, actually. But I can't just hope they'll give up and go away."

Three pirates, grumbling at each other with all the fondness and mutual respect for each other of flies and pesticide, were hurrying closer. Kit and Tyler, caught too suddenly off gaurd, ducked down low, but it was not going to be enough, as the pirates were headed straight for the crates they were hiding behind. Tyler motioned to Kit to retreat and hide, and on his fingers, toes, and a prayer, he slithered back around into the corridor from which they came... but when he looked around for Kit, the boy was not there. He rubbernecked around the corner, and Kit was not at the crates and barrels, either. The pirates, however, were. Bandit Patch, departed from his break by the swinging foot and head-cuffing fists of second mate Will, stood swearing over a barrel.

"You gotta be kiddin'. The _whole _thing?"

Next to him, Will loaded Hacksaws burly arm's with two big crates. "That's what the boss wants. Now get to it!"

Patch took the barrel by both arms and hoisted it, and a surprise weight made him stagger and balance awkwardly. "The heck...? What's in this thing?"

Will sneered at him. "You too prissy to handle it, mutt?"

Before he tripped, Patch dropped the barrel on its side. It rattled with the sound of thousands of little pieces being shook. "The weight's weird, all heavy on top. You sure this is the one? I ain't comin' back if it's not!"

"Can't we open it and see all the pretties," Hacksaw pleaded. "Purdy, purdy, purdy pleeeese?"

"_You _get the rest of those shells on board," barked Will. "And you get that barrel by the boss's room."

Indignantly, with Will moving quickly to supervise other matters, Patch kicked the barrel and let it roll down the bumpy ground toward the Iron Vulture.

Once the pirates had cleared the area, Tyler crawled forward, quietly calling Kit's name. There was no answer, no sign of him. "Kit, for pity's sake, come out," he hissed. He figured the boy could not have gone far... until he spied Hacksaw and Patch taking those supplies inside the airship. His fingers dug deep into the ground, a terrible thought gripping him, that Kit had perhaps hid with a little too much innovation.

**

* * *

**

With one final kick, Patch's burden ended its journey through the Iron Vulture, rolling at speed toward Karnage's cabin, slamming into the wall by the door, forcing its top to come loose and risking a spill of its cargo, which as a private good to be brought straight to the captain's quarters must have been considered rather precious. Every dirty word Patch knew was panted through short breath; he punched the top back into place and set the barrel upright, cursed it, and stormed away. After a moment, left alone in the hall with no pirates nearby, the barrel began to shake, wobble, and eventually fell back on its side.

Kit pushed the barrel open, sliding into the hallway in a colorful landslide of jelly beans. His head felt like it was still spinning in circles, but the cold steel floor and bright, unshaded lightbulbs above were a stark warning of where he was. And then there was Dumptruck's familiar voice approaching, singing 'Bingo was his Name-o.'

"Uh-oh," was the uttered understatement of Kit's year. Up to the moment that barrel went into high-speed spin cycle, he thought his hiding spot was quite clever. Flinging jelly beans everywhere, he darted away from the barrel and slid through the nearby door, pushing it shut behind him.

With an ear to the door, he heard Dumptruck discover, with pleasant surprise, the scattered candy all over the floor, and, dropping on all fours, commence removing the mess in his own special, gluttonous way. Then Kit realized what room he was in, and of all the familiar sights of Don Karange's furniture and belongings, a peculiar golden sparkle shined in his eye from the top of the captain's desk.

There the stolen Felocian burial tome lay, free for the taking. Karnage had opened it, and had several of its leather pages sorted across the desk, depictions of now-obsolete landmarks and ancient symbols that had not been used to record directions for thousands of years. With haste, Kit began to stack the pages back together, his fingers tingling to wrap themselves around the ornate gold case and somehow make it back to the Sea Duck. Then he heard the sink running in the adjacent bathroom... Karange had not gone very far away. When the bathroom door rattled, Kit dropped the tome and vanished under the desk.

"I'm just too marvelous," sang Don Karnage as he strolled back to his desk. "Too marvelous for words!"

Underneath, Kit made silent gagging gestures.

Karnage plopped into his chair and began to put his feet up, but suddenly noticed something wrong. Kit could hear him figeting with the tome, and sorting again through the maps. "Who moved these," the captain wondered aloud. At length, he shrugged it off and and reached for his desktop microphone that was connected to the airship's staticky public address system and spoke: "Allo, my bungling buccaneers! It is I, your oh-so-handsome and fearless leader, Don Kar_rr_nage..."

Kit plugged his ears, not just for the irritating pitch of feedback from the speakers out in the hall. With or without the amplified volume, Karnage's arrogant voice seemed worst than any claw on any chalkboard.

After a lengthy introduction to his own crew-some of which Kit mouthed with him, _'In my voice, blah blah blah'_-Karnage eventually got to the matter at hand. "Today, men... today we set off for a new treasure! A city of gold, waiting quietly for thousands of years for just the right know-his-stuff treasure-hunting pirate-_that would be me_-to unravel its secret hiding place and plunder its daylights out!"

Kit wanted to punch him in the shin _so _much...

The captain continued, "And, if those estupid gato-type peasants _dare_ challenge us again with their puny weapons, we blow them to their kingdoms coming, yes-no? We will fight to..."

"Capt'n?" Mad Dog interrupted him, knocking on the door.

"Cannot you hear I am _busy,_ you blockhead?" screamed Karange, loud and clear into the microphone and into every pirate's eardrum.

"Sorry," whined Mad Dog. "But they _need_ you on the bridge!"

After grumbling something in Spanish, Karnage kicked his chair away from his desk and got up to leave. "I must do _everything_ around here for you imbeciles... uno momento, my _jelly beans_!"

A temper flurry against Dumptruck (who belched many apologies) fading distantly was a good enough sign that Karnage had left the area. Kit crawled out from under the desk, ready to grab the tome, but Karnage had taken it with him. "So close," he sighed. He started for the cabin's broadside window, where he could climb out and jump into the bay for a quick escape. But he stopped, considered the ventilation shaft on the far wall where he could sneak to the bridge. A moment of decision was concluded with two words: "_Too _close."

Kit removed the grate and crawled inside the vent. Not only did the dark shafts seem narrower than he seemed to recall, but lengthier and tougher to move through. After several minutes, he neared an opening that looked down on a room with a table, for which he stopped to observe if anyone was in there. It was empty. But when he tried to move on, he couldn't. Something was holding him back. "What the... oh no. No no no!" His sweater had snagged a piece of jagged metal that protruded along the side of the shaft. Try as he could, but because his space was so limited, he could neither reach back and fix it, or take his sweater off.

_'I don't believe this... I'm stuck,' _he thought. '_**I'm stuck!**__ What next?'_

The Iron Vulture's engines growled to life, making the airship rumble.

_'I had to ask...'_

**

* * *

**

Running with great bounds leaps, Tyler had thrown all caution to the wind as he sprinted back through the caverns of Pirate Island. He arrived at the Sea Duck still unseen, but not unchallenged by the obstacles, charred and scruffed from head to toe.

"Wildcat!" he panted as he opened the plane's door, crawling into the navigator's chair. "We have a big problem!"

"We _do_?" Wildcat gasped. "We're not out of mustard, are we?"

"No, it's Kit!"

"Kit's in trouble?"

"Big trouble! He's on that blasted pirate ship, and it's about to take off!"

As the Iron Vulture's dorsal propellers spun to full power, the gigantic front gates of Pirate Island slowly parted, flooding the murky inner bay with sunlight. A small tugboat struggled to pull the airship out into the open water.

By the time the Sea Duck had turned around and taxied out of the cove, the pirate flagship was already airborne and ascending sharply into the sky.

Tyler was at a loss at what to do. "Uh... oh, dear. I guess... follow them?"

Wildcat nodded and pushed the throttles all the way forward, pointed in chase after the pirates.

Ratchet looked out one of the bridge windows. "Hey, boss? I think we're... under attack?"

Karnage jumped out of his seat and rushed to the window. "Attack? What are you bubbling about? Who is it?"

"It looks like... the Sea Duck?"

"The Sea _Duck_?" Karnage shoved Ratchet out of the way and spotted the yellow plane for himself. Sure enough, the Sea Duck was making a brave beeline from below. "What is that fool Baloo up to?"

At Tyler's suggestion, Wildcat pulled the plane by the Iron Vulture's side, and once so close to the airship, thought of a particularly good question to ask: "So, what now?"

Tyler stared anxiously at the immense purple hull. "I don't have a clue. Something! Anything! Kit's in there!"

"I am not having time for this," said Karnage said. "Somebody open up with the cannons and _swat _that fly!"

"I've never been good at this rescue business," Tyler said. "If you can get close enough up top, I may be able to jump out and find a way inside. I wonder if they know we're here yet..."

"I think they do, man, look," Wildcat pointed. "They're opening their doors for us!"

"Their _what_? Uh-oh..." Hatches opened from the Vultures purple flanks, where heavy, broadside cannons protruded. "Guns! Look out!"

Before Wildcat could even blink, puffs of black smoke burst around the plane, and Tyler sank in his seat. "Get us out of here!" He nearly jumped out of his fur when the Duck's right engine exploded. "Gads!"

Wildcat put the Duck into a steep dive to avoid further damage. He was having a hard time keeping the plane steady. "I think we better la-and!"

"Can you keep up with them somehow?"

"I don't think so, man. The Sea Duck's saying 'Owwie owwie, I'm hurt! I'm hurt! And I need to _lay down _for a minute!'"

"But Kit's still...! Oh dear. Oooh dear!" While the Sea Duck skid crudely into the choppy crests of the sea, the Iron Vulture disappeared over the clouds.

**

* * *

**

Much later that afternoon, Tyler just slightly opened the door to Higher for Hire and timidly peeked inside. Rebecca had heard the Sea Duck pull up to the dock, and was on her way out to meet with Wildcat and Kit. She swung the door open, and they mutually startled each other. "Mr. Borden! What are you doing?"

"Hello," Tyler squeaked. He cleared his throat and started over. "Hello, Rebecca! Why, I was just admiring the lovely coat of paint on your establishment."

Rebecca blinked, looked at paint on the front door, peels, cracks and all. "I, uh... thank you."

"How's Baloo?"

"He's doing better, thanks. He's asleep right now."

"Thank goodness," Tyler muttered.

"Huh?"

Tyler coughed, and chuckled uneasily. "I said, that's very good, that he's doing better!"

Rebecca looked him over, noticing, in addition to his odd behavior, he appeared an awful something more ragged than the last time she had seen him. "Are you okay, Mr. Borden?"

"Who, _me_? What a silly question! Never better, here! Good old... uh, me. Doing great, just great!" He flashed all his teeth in a broad grin to bring the point home.

"I'm sorry," Rebecca shrugged. "Please, take a seat! I'll be right with you in just a moment."

Tyler stepped aside to let her pass, but then took a deep breath, imagining himself in a blindfold with a cigarette in his mouth. _'Here goes nothing,' _he thought. "Rebecca, I don't think this can wait. I have some very bad news to tell you."

"You do?"

Tyler took off his fedora and held it in front of him, as if using it as a shield. "Y-you're not going to like this..."

Rebecca frowned. "What is it?"

"But I want you to know that I assume responsibility for all of this, and... and... oh for pity's sake, don't have me arrested!"

"Tyler?"

"Well... I'm afraid Kit and I did something rather rash..."

**

* * *

**

To simply say Kit was feeling miserable would perhaps not capture, in itself, the degree of miserableness he felt. Miserable was being stuck and cramped up for hours on end, but then compounded by having plenty of time to think about and regret all the stupid things he had done to earn him his present situation: that was torture.

Soon after the ship launched, pirates had filled the room below him, and had been there for quite some time. They would easily hear him, so he did not to try to struggle free. Four of them passed the time around a table playing poker, which Kit resignedly watched from above. _'What a bore... Wonder how long it's gonna take them to figure out they all have two aces in their hands?'_

After a series of bids and raises, one of the pirates called out, "Okay, boys, read 'em and weep. A pair of aces!"

When he reached for the chips, another pirate stopped him. "Not so fast, I got a pair of aces, too!"

The third: "Same here."

The forth: "Ha! _Three_ aces! How'd ya like _them_ apples?"

Kit grinned as they gave each other hostile looks. _'Maybe this won't be so bad after all.'_

"One of ya's is a lousy cheat!" the first yelled.

_'Look who's talking,'_ Kit thought. _'That guy has two more hidden in his sleeve.'_

"Yeah, and what're _you_ gonna do about it?"

Before fisticuffs broke out, Karnage's voice came through the loudspeakers again. "Ahem. Attention, attention, this is the commanding voice of your Captain, Don Kar_rr_nage... take your places, men! Our destination arrives!"

In a beat, the room was empty.

"Finally," Kit grumbled. "I thought they'd never leave." He took a few breaths, then with his left hand used the vent opening as a grip, and pulled his body with all his might. It was working; he could hear his sweater ripping, until finally it snapped free.

"Whew," he panted. "Okay, Karnage, what's up on the bridge?"

Don Karnage smiled from ear to ear as he approached the table on the bridge where a map featuring Alpacatan was laid out. He set the Felocian tome down with some gentleness as to not scratch its golden casting. "Be alert, my mangy minions! Those pesky gatos might start shooting any momento."

From directly above, Kit zeroed in through the vent covering. _'There's the gold... Okay, think... how do I get it?'_

But suddenly, under his weight, the covering started to give, creaking loudly. "Uh-oh..."

Karnage protectively snatched the tome in his arms, glaring up. "What was _that_?"

Other pirates gathered around the table to see. "Maybe it's mice," Ratchet commented.

Hacksaw giddily licked his chops. "Ooh... ya really think?"

Karnage shuddered at him. "Well do not all of you be standing here like a bunch of humps on bumping dogs, _someone_ get up there and _look_!"

_'Too late... pull chocks!'_ Kit kicked the covering from under his feet and burst down from the ceiling.

Karnage lost control of his jaw, as did many of the others looking on, chins pointing at the ground.

"Hiya guys!" Kit grinned nervously at them as he got to his feet, and snatched the golden artifact out of the speechless captain's hands. "Déjà vu, huh?"

Like greased lightning, Kit bolted off the table and out the bridge. Karnage began to stammer, pulling on his ears and stamping his feet in place. "He... I... what... _after him!_"

No track meet at school had ever enticed Kit's legs to run as fast as they were through the dank halls and catwalks of the airship. In thunderous clamor, he heard Karnage and the others galloping right behind him. Speeding down a flight of stairs, Kit missed a step and tumbled the rest of the way to the hangar. When he reached bottom, his cap fell off and he dropped the artifact.

Karnage ran down the stairs, yelling, "Not this time! _Not this time!_"

Kit had not a moment to waste. He grabbed the tome, lost the hat, and raced toward the Iron Vulture's open prow.

Karnage, speeding ahead of the others, ran intensely behind the boy, fire in his eyes and adrenaline in his veins, and was catching up with him. Though he had caught up to Kit's heels, Kit was just steps from the edge of the ship and reaching for his airfoil. "Stop!" cried Karnage. "You will _not_ do this to me...!" He took a heavy breath, then made a last-ditch flying leap to tackle Kit. "..._again!"_

Just as Kit leapt from the airship, Karnage slammed into him from behind. With a thud and an _"oof!"_, the wind flew out of Kit's lungs and the golden tome out of his hands.

Karnage felt victorious if for but a brief second, until he realized that instead of bringing Kit down to the floor, he was still flying... and falling.

The other pirates skid to a halt at the edge of the Iron Vulture's nose, watching Kit and their Captain plummet headfirst to the green jungle below, both screaming.

Karnage held tight to Kit's waist, taking several elbows to the face, but that was none of his concern at the moment. His eyes were like saucers as the ground approached frighteningly closer.

With what room he could muster himself to reach, Kit wrestled his hand inside his sweater and brought out his airfoil, fanning it open with a flick of his wrist. Karnage squeezed him so tight he could hardly breathe. Kit set his board under his knees, trying to gain control. It was not easy, and every skill he had ever taught himself about cloudsurfing had suddenly come into play.

Gliding with all the grace of a thrown hammer, the two skimmed along the tall treetops of the Atronador Basin, sending leaves flying in their wake as they plunged into the sea of branches. They clenched their eyes shut as the leaves and twigs scratched against their faces, and, very abruptly, they slammed into the trunk of a large tree, and fell the rest of the way to the ground.

Almost hyperventilating, Karnage was seeing double... no, triple. "I... I shall be getting off at the next stop, please..."

Kit lay on his back in a fern, staring in a shocked gaze at the bits of sky showing through the trees. His airfoil was still clenched to his chest for dear life, and presently he had no intention of ever letting go of it.

In a moment Karnage sat up, cupping his head. When the stars before his eyes finally faded, he was not so much alarmed about where he was, but moreso where his ship was. The Iron Vulture was high overhead, and going away without him. "What the-you morons," he shouted, dry and raspily. "_Come back here_!"

Neither Kit nor Karnage was quite able to stiffen their legs just yet. Kit collected himself and began to crawl away from the pirate.

"You!" Karnage yelled. "This is your fault! I am fed up with your annoying existence!"

Kit rolled over to sneer at him. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I make you miss your ride home? Gee."

"The gold box, boy, _where is it_?"

"The heck should I know? You made me drop it!"

Seething, Karnage tried to hoist himself to his feet, but for the moment settled for his knees. "You... you..."

"You know, I'm _really_ not in the mood, so _shut up!"_

"I am going to tear you up into little pieces and sell you as _furniture stuffing_, you filthy no-good lousy _son of a hamster_!"

Kit scooted back when he saw Karnage's hand on his sword's hilt. "Yeah, I wish I could be like you... a cheap, low-life, stupid _son of a_-!"

Karnage yanked his cutlass from his side. "I _dare _you to finish that sentence, boy."

Kit's lips twitched as he inhaled deeply. He finished the sentence, so loudly that birds took to the sky.

"Why you...!" Pulling his strength together, but moreso energized by the pure wrath, Karnage shot up and lunged his sword wildly. Kit jumped up, sidestepped Karnage's cutlass, and swung his airfoil into the pirate's snout.

"_Ow_!" Karange fell to his knees again, dropping his cutlass to hold his nose.

Kit ran behind a tree. "W-wait! I just saved your life, didn't I?"

Cutlass readied once more, Karange scanned around for where the direction of the boy's voice. "You will _never _make a fool out of me again, Kit Cloudkicker! Never!"

Karange heard a twig snap and a short scuffling sound from behind a nearby tree. He tiptoed toward it, until a wound-back branch suddenly flew from around the trunk and whopped him in the nose, this time knocking him flat on his back. Kit leapt over him and ran.

"What the hell is all that noise?" someone bellowed in front of Kit It was a familiar voice that sent a shudder down his back, and suddenly his path was blocked by Jesse Richter plowing through the foliage, almost tripping over the boy. "What the-pirates!"

Richter had a backpack full of gear slung over his right shoulder, which he promptly dropped to wield the rifle slung over his left shoulder. Seeing that as no welcoming invitation, Kit backpedaled and ran the other way, with Richter close behind.

"Stop, kid!"

Kit lept over a dazed Karnage again, but was caught by the foot and tripped by him. Karnage wrestled him to the ground and pinned him down by the collar of his sweater. "Do the words _mangle _and _mulch _ring a bell inside your brain, boy?"

A shadow stepped over Karnage; he barely had time to look over his shoulder before being met with Richter's knuckles. The blow allowed Kit to wriggle out from under Karnage, who rolled limply in the soil.

"This isn't what it looks like," Kit tried to explain quickly. "I swear!"

"I bet you do," growled Richter, taking a swipe to grab Kit, but was dodged. "Come 'ere!"

Kit gulped. He figured he didn't stand a chance at defending himself, so he did the only thing he could think of... run. He hurdled over a fallen log and cut through the ferns, while Richter raised his rifle sights at him. "I said stop, kid! I ain't gonna let you get your buddies!"

Cursing under his breath, Richter fired a warning shot that grazed over the boy's head and splintered a tree, but it only prompted Kit to run with yet more fervor. "I'm not chasin' you! This ain't a game!"

Richter put his rifle up to his eye, aiming carefully as Kit jumped over rocks and ran through bushes. "Sorry, brat, warned ya."

Kit never saw the muzzle flash, the blast of smoke from the gun barrel, or how Richer masterfully lead his target on before firing. He didn't even hear the shot. He just dove for the ground, somehow sensing he was already too late. He was hit in mid-leap.

The world went spinning in such a slow motion that he could practically pick out each tiny pebble in the soil as he fell. Something had grasped him, an unspeakable fright, such that his body went numb before it touched the ground. _Then _he heard the shot.

Through blurred vision, even Karnage saw the bullet tear through Kit's sweater, squarely into his back.

Richter lowered the rifle and swore. "That shouldn't have happened!"

"You... you shot him...?" Karnage said. It was as much of a question as it was a shocked statement.

"I ought to put a slug in you, too, right now," Richter said. "You brainwashed that kid, _you _oughtta be the one dead. But you got a price on you. _You're _comin' with me."

Taking some twine from his backpack, Richter went to grab Karange's wrist, but Karnage had regained his wits enough not to go down so easily. Catching the grizzly by surprise, the pirate wrestled to escape his grasp, and when strength alone wasn't going to set him free, he sank his teeth into Richter's forearm.

Richter yelped, but like clotheslining a football player, he swung Karnage around and brutally slammed him into a tree, leaving an imprint in the bark where his head had hit. Karnage was out.

Not far, Kit sprawled on the ground, his face smeared in tears and mud, holding his breath lest he surrender his last...


	4. With friends like these

**Chapter 4**

**With friends like these...**

Kit held his breath until his face turned purple, then let all out with a gusty rush of wind. As he resumed breathing, he relaxed just a bit, and realized that he did not feel any pain. '_Is this how it's __**supposed**__ to feel like?-oh no, what if I'm paralyzed!'_

With cluttered and overbearing panic racing through is mind, he braved to rub his foot against the ground to see if he could feel his toes... and he could.

Now he was just confused. He opened one eye at a time and glanced around. He _knew_ he had been shot, but something very peculiar about it.

His hand still trembled as he reached to touch his back, checking for a wound. "Wait a minute..."

Instead of finding blood, he brought out his airfoil, and saw it had a sharp dent in it where the bullet had hit. He went limp with a tremendous sigh of relief, then gave his board a grateful kiss as he sat up, and promised to fix it later as he stuffed it back in his sweater.

Overhead, birds and other animals cried in the treetops. As he looked up at the overwhelming wilderness, it was a sudden and barraging reminder of his worst problem... he was alone, lost without a clue where he was, other than he stood in the middle of a very big jungle. The golden-red hue slowly bleeding into the sky meant daylight would soon fade away.

He began to wonder aimlessly, growing more worried by the second. Finding his way in a city, big or small, was one thing, and that much he could deal with. Such a jungle, however, was another thing, and with nightfall creeping ever nearer, he could confess that he was frightened.

'_I need to find help, anyone,'_ he thought. He took a moment to collect his thoughts, and to decide which direction might be most promising. But with the trees growing darker and shadow falling ever thicker on the ground, all directions looked equally dangerous, even haunted as it were.

The only thing he did know was that the coast-and the towns and cities along it-were to the west of the jungle. He dug his compass from his sweater to check the heading, but it rendered him no comfort... he could have been ten days from the nearest town, for all he knew.

There was only one chance back to civilization that he knew of, though the prospect left him as scared and uncertain as any other choice: finding Richter. He did not know how he would go about it; one didn't, after all, simply go up to a person who had just shot him and ask for a ride home.

He trekked back to the spot where he and Karnage had landed, listening carefully, until he heard faint voices in the distance...

**

* * *

**

Kit caught up with Richter and company, but kept out of sight. He climbed a tree and watched them without sound. They had tents and a fire set up, camped by the shore of a great lake, where on the opposite side of the water a smoldering volcano loomed over the trees at the foot of the mountains.

When Kit arrived, Richter had just dropped Karnage and noticed what an unpleasant surprise waited him at their campsite. A dead, heavy tree had fallen on their seaplane, which had been moored near the shore, smashed its fuselage open, half of it now sunk, and severed the left wing completely.

"Look at it, that tree must weight a ton," one of the pilots remarked. "Most of our stuff's still in there, too!"

While the his two assistants fretted amongst themselves how they were going to get home, Richter angrily waded into the waist-deep water, lifted the tree trunk from the plane, and hurled it aside. His disposition was made even less sunny when he inspected the flooded cargo hold, quite evident as he punched a new dent into the side of the plane.

Khan's pilots stood careful watch, with holstered pistols ready to draw, over Karnage, who was tied to a stake in the ground with his hands behind his back. He was bleeding from the mouth, and with heavy eyes, he fought himself out of a stupor, wincing at the pain of his tight binds.

Richter limped back to shore, unleashing a colorful vocabulary over his injured leg and the mess made of their plane. "Food's gone! You two make yourselves useful for once and go round some up instead of standing there jackin' your jaws!"

"Uh, round up, Mr. Richter?"

"_Hunt_, genius," Richter said. "You have pistols, don't you?"

"Well, yes we do, but…"

"_Then?_ Hurry up, before it gets dark."

The panthers looked at each other. "Um, right." They left, muttering to each other.

"And don't get lost," Richter yelled. "I'm not looking for you if you do!" He passed in front his captive, noticing Karnage squinting up at him. "Well, well, look who's comin' around. How's your head?"

Karnage sneered. "_Chingáte_."

Kit flinched as Richter gave the pirate a backhand swat that looked like it must have hurt awfully. "You're not talking to one of your idiots, rodent."

Karnage held on to his wits, defiantly glaring at his captor. "What are you wanting with me?"

"Just a little reward for bringin' you in," Richter replied. "It's not enough to go chasing around the world for you, but hell, since you're _here_... you oughtta be worth a few grand to someone."

"Ha! Is that all? Insulting. It should be a _million_ grand."

"Nobody cares that much."

"Humph. I would die before going to prison."

"I can arrange _that_, too." Richter kneeled down in front of Karnage, looking him hard in the eye. "Let me tell you something. I used to bounty hunt for a living, and I bagged a lot of smart crooks, and some that weren't so smart but could fight tooth and nail and kill you in a heartbeat. You're neither. You're just a bag of pig snot who cowers behind his goons. So what. You don't have the _cajones _to pick a fight where the other guy isn't defenseless, but just try screwin' with me once, I dare you."

Karnage gritted his teeth and spat in the grizzly's face.

Richter froze for an instant, then stood up and, seemingly composed, wiped the spittle off his cheek. "I'll be right back." He took his rifle and a two bullets from his backpack, then brutally kicked the pirate to the ground, planting the sole of his boot into his throat and pinning him. The stake that Karnage's wrists were tied to drove up the small of his back. His windpipe suddenly blocked, Karnage's breath came out in agonized rasps. Smiling, never taking his eyes off him, Richter slowly loaded his rifle, enjoying himself, and the terror in Karnage's eyes.

Kit stirred in panic, nearly losing his balance out of the tree. "Karnage, you _idiot_," he whispered loudly. "Oh my gosh!"

With a flourish, Richter finished loading his rifle. "Well, I can't say I didn't dare you." He planted the gun's muzzle right between Karange's eyes, then thought about it a brief moment before pressing the muzzle against his throat. "Gotta make sure they recognize your ugly face."

For all the harm Karnage had ever done or tried to do to him, for all how deeply he despised him, Kit's heart fell too sick not to do anything. Karnage was helpless. From his sweater, Kit fished the coins he took from Pirate Island, and threw one at Richter. It hit the grizzly on the shoulder.

Richter turned around. "What…?"

Kit threw another coin, this time on a stone right below him to make a noise.

Richter pulled his gun away from Karnage and moved towards the sudden clinking sound. Once his foot was off Karnage's throat, the pirate gasped for air; after a moment, his breathing was ragged but functional.

"I think you're goons finally came for you." Through narrowed eyes, Richter scanned the jungle cautiously. "Come on out! I got plenty of bullets."

Kit waited until he was right beneath him, then dropped more coins at his feet. Richter looked down at them, bewildered. "Huh?"

_'Here goes nothing,'_ thought Kit. With his folded airfoil braced under his chest, he fell straight down from the branch, smashing his board into the top of Richter's head. It crushed his airfoil to uselessness and jarred his ribs, but it had worked; Richter collapsed in a massive thud.

"That's for Baloo, too," Kit wheezed.

"You… you are alive?" asked Karnage. Kit ran to him and began untying the rope from his wrists. He did n't reply. "What are you… you are _helping_ me?"

"Don't ask. I just better hurry before I realize what I'm doing. Ugh, he's got you tied too tight. I'll have to cut these off. Where's your sword?"

"I… I don't... know," replied Karnage, his voice faltering with the reluctance to confess as much.

"Terrific. Hold on, then." Kit left and opened Richter's backpack, searching for a knife, while Karnage regarded him with much puzzlement.

"Why are _you _helping _me_?"

Kit found a folded buck knife, came back and went to hastey work on sawing through the rope.

"Why did you not let him shoot me?" asked Karnage.

"I'll prob'ly regret this like everything else I've done today, but I thought even _you_ didn't deserve that." Kit finished slicing the ropes, freeing Karnage. "There."

"Argh," shuddered Karnage, rubbing his aching hands together. "What about _him_?" he asked, pointing at Richter.

"What _about_ him? I'm not stickin' around to find out. You?"

"Perhaps not today, no."

"There's a map in his backpack, hold on. I'll find how to get out of here." Kit routed around for the map, but from the corner of his eye, caught a sudden blur of movement: Karnage had spied Richter's rifle. Kit abandoned the backpack and abruptly raced him for it, but the race was over when Karnage elbowed him to the ground, and took up the rifle.

"I think _not_, boy," he said, pointing the gun at Kit. "What do you think you are doing?"

"W-what are _you_ doing? I just saved your life, _remember?_"

Karnage frowned, then feigned a bored expression. "Silly boy, do not flatter yourself. I would not waste the bullet."

"Oh yeah? Then what _are_ you going to do?"

"Perhaps what should have been done a long time ago..." He stomped to Richter's side and aimed the rifle for his head.

"Wait! You're not going to just shoot him!"

"And why not?"

"He's defenseless. If you pull that trigger, it'll be in cold blood. Get it?"

"Ha! He was about to do the same to _me_!"

"Maybe…" Kit turned his back on him. "I guess I can't expect you to be any better than that."

"Better that what?"

Kit didn't answer. He stood still as if waiting for Karnage to get it over with.

Deciding to ignore the boy, Karnage slowly pulled the trigger back, but released it, looking at back Kit. "Well, he _was _going to do it to me!"

Kit made no response. Karnage pulled on the trigger again, and once again released it. "I am _not_ needing a morality lesson from _you_, brat."

"I'm not giving you one, stupid."

"_Stupid?_ Give me _one_ reason why I should not!"

"Do what you want," said Kit, shaking his head.

"Then I _will_!" Karnage pressed the rifle against Richter's head, but paused, sighing in frustration. "Forget it. I do not want to waste a bullet on _him_, either."

"Fine, then. Let's just get out of here, huh?"

"To _where?_"

"The nearest town, anything!"

"You can find the way?"

Kit pulled the map from Richter's supplies and spread it out over the ground. "I _am_ a navigator."

"Smarty-pants," Karnage mumbled. "I can read a map too, you know."

Next, Kit reached in his sweater and took out his compass.

"Familiar toy," Karnage said, quite snidely.

Kit tried to ignore that one; with diligence he ran his finger over the lines of the map. "We're twenty miles from the coast. You head south of here and that'll turn into a trail that heads due west. Follow the beach back north and you'll find Alpacito City, and a bunch of smaller towns on the way. It's easy enough, I don't think even you could get lost." Then he threw his compass at Karnage's chest. "And for all I care, you can have it back!"

Karnage caught it and threw it back at his feet. "_I_ do not want it, with your mangy mitts on it all this time. No thank you!"

"Aw, shush up. I've done plenty for you already, just get away from-!" Kit froze with a sudden idea; his eyes lit up as if there were gears in his mind that had just begun to spin with great speed. He looked over the map again, remembering what he had heard and seen from Tyler and Bagheera the day before. The Rainbow Canyon was labeled, about fifteen miles to the northeast.

"What is wrong with you," asked Karnage , not recalling a time when Kit so abruptly stopped insulting him. With a deep moan, Richter started to stir, so Karnage promptly cracked the butt of his rifle over his head, and there was movement no more. "Better," he said. "Now, what is going on inside that fuzzy-type head of yours?"

"Nothing," said Kit, and he picked up the compass with renewed interested in its ownership. "Look, I gave you directions. Just go call your goons to pick you up and leave me alone, okay?"

"Such haste…" Karnage aimed the rifle at the boy. "You know something."

"I thought you said you wouldn't waste the bullet?"

"Do not tempt me, boy. What are you hiding?"

Kit scoffed. "Get lost."

"Perhaps that is what you are trying to do, _navigator_."

"Whoa, you pronounced it _right_! You've been practicing, haven't you?"

Karnage turned red, ready to throttle the boy, but instead snatched the map out of his hands and checked for himself. Kit had not given him phony directions. "I do not understand…"

"I told you."

"Then why are you being so sneaky? I do not trust you."

"And I was _really _hoping you would."

"_Answer me!"_

"Oooh, an order." Kit placed his hand up to his brow in a mock salute. "Aye aye, sir."

"Forget you, then," Karnage huffed. He pushed Kit out of his way and stomped toward the lake, and began considering how exactly he was going to hike through all the jungle. And though he kept his back to Kit, he was curious to see what exactly the boy was going to do.

Kit was busy raiding through one of Khan's pilot's packs, which was significantly smaller than Richter's and easier for him to carry. He packed the buck knife with it, and took quick inventory. "Rope, blanket... no food, though."

"Packing, eh," Karnage muttered. Then he realized, directions or no, it was going to be no short walk out of the jungle. "Ooh, he makes me so angry! Why did he have to think of that before me?"

Kit zipped up his newly claimed backpack and swung it around his shoulders, then started away from the camp.

"That's the _wrong way_, Mister I-_am_-a-navigator," said Karnage.

"Have a nice life," Kit replied. "Or better yet, have a horrible life!"

Karange knew that boy was up to something, and _hated_ not knowing what. "Let him die out there then," he grumbled, then yelled, "I just better not catch you following me, boy! You are on your own!"

Kit shot back an almost inaudible retort, though Karnage knew he wouldn't like it if he heard it. The captain found the other pilots backpack and took it as his own, muttering, "Foul-mouthed furball..."

**

* * *

**

"This stinks," Kit panted. Dusk drew in, and the jungle grew thick with shadows. Hiking and climbing uphill, with every bush, bolder, and tree each its own obstacle coarse, his brisk speed had quickly turned into a slow trudge, and eventually downgraded to a near crawl before he collapsed against a mossy tree to rest. Around him and unseen, the creatures of the wild were preparing for the night, howling, croaking, and chirping from every direction.

Kit opened and dug into his backpack for the lantern and matches, and, with the compass getting harder to read in the dimness, considered taking out the blanket and staying put for the night. He was about to light the lantern when the jungle became quiet. The owls, frogs, and crickets, one by one yet all at once, left a sudden silence that made Kit's fur stand on the back of his neck.

Tree boughs rustled in a chilled breeze. Branches and twigs snapped not far beside him, some large and loud, several at a time... that was not the wind. There was something big prowling nearby.

Kit stuffed the lantern back inside the backpack, hoisted it over his shoulder, and with a renewed spring of energy welling from the thought of being something's dinner, he jotted away from the area, double-paced.

The noises cutting through the foliage followed. His jog turned into a full sprint.

He ran to a clearing and paused; to his left and right were dense walls of fern, and what might have laid hiding in wait amongst them he did not want to find out. In front of him was a cliff of jagged granite, at least ten feet high, adorned with small patches of grass and old, thick tree roots muscling through the cracks. Behind him, something hissed.

Kit dropped the backpack and made a leap to grab onto the tree roots, but he was just too short. His pursuer hissed again, louder, nearer.

Something jumped at him, and he yelped... it was a small monkey, which had just leapt from an overhead tree, and it looked wonderingly at him.

"Oh, geez!" Kit slid on his back against the cliff and had a seat, wiping sweat from his eyes. "Dangit, you scared me good."

Suddenly, the _real_ assailant leapt out from the ferns, snatched the monkey in its jaws and swallowed it whole.

Kit screamed and backpedaled his heels deep into the ground as if to push himself through the rocky cliff. It was the largest, ugliest, and meanest looking lizard he had ever seen... an Atronador varan. It was nearly the size of an automobile, broad-shouldered and with a short, blunt and lipless jaw that bared dozen of stained, dagger-like teeth, and it had rows of horns from its brow, down its scaled back and to its long tail.

Kit watched in speechless horror as it took its time to swallow the small monkey down. Amidst black eyes, its narrow, diamond-shaped pupils reflected the setting sunlight like flame, and they were trained solely on Kit.

It stuck its forked tongue out, tasting its prey's scent, then opened its mouth wide with a raspy roar. Dark green drool dripped from its chin. Bearing long, curved claws, paws moved toward the boy slowly, as if it was taking the time to enjoy the fear it sensed. Kit reached for the knife in his backpack; his hands shook so much he could hardly open it, and had not a clue how it was going to help him.

The creature crouched, ready to pounce. Kit braced himself...

Just then, a gunshot blasted from out of nowhere, and the varan recoiled with a chunk of flesh exploding from its side. It did not stay down, however; it retreated back into the ferns, leaving a trail of blood behind.

"I do not know what that thing was thinking. You would only give it the same stomach ache you have always given _me_."

Kit blinked. "Karnage?"

The captain stepped out from the foliage, rifle and backpack with him. He laughed when he saw the knife in Kit's hand. "Planning on making dance shoes out of it, boy?"

"What are you… you followed me!"

"True, but we are even now, yes?"

"Even? Don't tell me you followed me for a chance to save _my _life."

"Of course not! _You _do not concern me in the least. But I am not _estupid, _as you would think."

"What are you talking about?"

"That gray fox you were with, the one that talks funny... he told you, no? What the map was for."

"Well… what if he did?"

"Cities of gold are a pirates _duty _to plunder! And _you _know something about where it is at."

Kit waved him off. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Do not try to cover my face with the sheep, boy," Karnage said, shaking his finger at him.

"That's 'don't pull the wool over my eyes,' Shakesbear."

"I know it is here somewhere, and I will not let this chance pass me by."

"Forget it! I don't need you tagging along."

"You miss the point, boy! _I_ will not be tagging along, because _you_ will not be going. We are simply going to have an exchange of information, and _maybe _your loser of a best friend will hear from you again."

"Oh yeah? Who's gonna-?"

Both shushed when a roar burst from the bushes. Karnage raised the rifle and pointed it around left and right. "What was _that_?"

"I-I think that thing's coming back…" Kit whispered.

The bushes rattled, and Karnage aimed. "Then I will blow it to smitherinees!"

"Wait 'til you see it!" yelled Kit, pushing the rifle down, but it was too late. Karnage fired, and the bullet burrowed into the ground.

"What! What did you do _that_ for?"

"I didn't _mean _to-well why did you shoot, anyway! How many bullets does it have?"

Karnage shoved Kit away from him and aimed the rifle toward the roaring noises again.. but then he frowned, lowered the gun, and thought of the answer to Kit's question: "Two."

"Oh, geez," cringed Kit. "You made a big fuss about having the gun, then you're too much of a dumbbell to bring bullets for it?"

"What? How _dare_ you call me a-" Another roar, and Karnage's heart skipped a beat. "Then again, perhaps I may have overlooked that tiny, insignificant detail."

"Come on, it won't be able to climb rock," said Kit, pulling on Karnage's arm. "We gotta get on top of that cliff!"

Karnage noticed the height, and shook Kit off. "Uno momento, just _how_ do we get up there?"

"Give me a boost and I'll help you up from on top!"

"Hmm, how about you give _me_ a boost and I…"

"Get real."

"Fine," Karnage groaned. After dropping the rifle, he knelt down and allowed the boy to climb up to his shoulders.

Kit could just barely put his hands on the top. "Raise up a little, will ya?"

"I am already standing on my toes, you raunchy runt! Now _hurry_!"

With savage glee, Kit planted a foot on Karnage's nose. Once he pulled himself up to the top, he turned to see the captain's fuming expression. It made him feel a lot better.

"All right," said Kit, "now toss up our stuff!"

"Am I looking like the dock-worker to you? I am _Don Karnage_, I am not supposed to be…" When the bushes rattled again, Karnage had a _very_ sudden change of heart. He grabbed Kit's backpack, and along with his, tossed them up and over the ledge. "There!"

Kit reached for a rope to pull Karnage up, but something in the distance caught his eye. "Whoa… I think you made it mad."

"I what?" Karnage looked... the varan had its head poked from the foliage, staring at him, and wether for hunger, anger, or bloodthirst, it had 'kill' in its eyes. Karange's voice cracked. "The rope, boy. _Now_."

Kit wrapped the rope around the nearest tree, then lowered it down to Karnage, but yanked it back just as he was going to grab hold. "Wait."

"For _what?_" The varan was on its way, and Karnage was breaking into sweat.

"If I let you up here, you gotta give me your word you're not gonna pull anything. Understand? I want this treasure too, and I don't need you getting in the way."

"What! That is _blackmail_!"

"Yep."

"Impressive," Karnage said under his breath.

"We got a deal?"

"Absolutely n-" The creature started charging towards Karnage. "Yes! Yes! Deal! The rope!"

"How do I know you'll keep your word?"

"I swear on my _life_, boy! Now shut up and hurry!"

Kit lowered the rope again and braced himself at the other end. Karnage grabbed on and climbed for dear life, although not quite fast enough. The lizard made a lunge for him, and the dangling pirate quickly reached down and lifted his tail out of way. "_Yiiee!_"

The lizard caught one of the tails of his coat instead, ripping it off. Soon Karnage climbed to the top of the cliff, panting. Looking back down at the lizard, and his blue coattail sticking out of its mouth, he shook his fist at it. "I hope you _choke_ on it, you repugnant reptile!"

Kit peered down the cliff beside him, rubbing his arms. "You know, you're a lot less scrawny than you look."

"And _you!_" Karnage grabbed Kit by his sweater, holding him near the edge. "I should _drop_ you right now and make you lizard lunch!"

"You gave me your word! You swore on your life!"

"_Who's _going to know?" Karnage smirked heartlessly, with a piercing and taunting glare that with no further need for explanation proved to Kit all he could do and get away with. "And who cares if the whole world knows? Do not ever try to trap me, wretch. _I _am a pirate, and you are _so _overly under-qualified!" He pushed Kit to the ground, away from the ledge. "Remember that!"

Kit landed on his hands and knees, and seethed stilly for a moment while Karnage gloated over the point he had made.

Karnage went on, "It is lucky for you, that I _do _keep my-_oof_!" Kit had charged forward and head-butted Karnage in the gut, rocking the pirate back and causing his feet to slip over the ledge. Karnage yelped and grabbed big handfuls of grass and roots, just enough to keep his shoulders from going below. With the varan still under his feet, he kicked and clawed frantically for what traction he could muster to pull himself to safety.

"Don't ever tell me what to do," Kit said, coldly. "Just remember _that_."

For a moment, Karnage was torn between what was more important: worrying about the varan snapping his leg off, or giving Kit the dirtiest look he could furrow. Somehow the latter choice seemed best. "Keep it up, boy! I-ow!" Kit had thrown the rope at his nose, and Karnage, grumbling a concession to an unspoken truce, climbed to safety.

As Karnage smacked the dirt from his knees and sleeves, Kit picked up his backpack. "As far as I'm concerned, this is the last I'll be seeing of you. I'm outta here."

"Oh no you don't!" Karnage picked his own backpack up and started after Kit. "You do not actually think I will let you get there first?"

"Let me? Ha," Kit said. "I'm younger and _way _faster."

"You did not seem so fast when that _beast_ had you cornered," Karnage replied. "And _I_ had to save _your_ miserable hide."

"My hero," Kit mumbled. "I don't need you slowing me down."

"Me slowing _you_ down? You know you would not survive two minutos out here without me to protect you, which I will _not_,so stay out of my way!"

"_You're_ the one who's following _me_," Kit said, very annoyed.

"Am not! _You_ are following _me_!"

Kit turned to face him, throwing his arms up in the air. "_I_ know where I'm going! How am _I_ following _you_?"

"See? You admit it!" Karnage started walking away, leaving a confused Kit behind.

"I don't think so!" Kit caught up with him. "We'll see who makes it there… _in one piece_."

Karnage turned up his nose. "Don't make me laugh."

"Don't make _me_ laugh!" Kit retorted.

"_I_ am already laughing at you! Ha ha ha! You hear that?"

Curious animals watching the two lost sight of them as they disappeared into the dense jungle, their repartee resounding throughout.

"Laugh it up! _You _couldn't find your way out of a _sleeping bag_."

"Why don't you get swallowed by a mosquito, you mangy midget!"

"_Midget_?"

**

* * *

**

Richter's assistants, colonels Jackson and Taylor (and for the record, Richter could not tell them apart save if he took the time to read the initials stitched on their jackets, which he never did), were headed back to their camp, talking about and questioning the two gunshots they had just heard.

"Maybe the big guy shot his own dinner," one remarked.

"I could've swore they sounded like they were coming from the other direction, though. By the way, _you _tell him all we could find were a handful of berries."

"Me? Why me? You were the one that got us lost. 'I _know_ where I'm going,' he says."

"Yeah, well you-what the? Hey, look at that!"

Beside them, there was the unmistakable shimmer of gold beaconed from the grey shrubbery. They quickly investigated; it was the tome dropped from the Iron Vulture, intact. They knew not what it was, or where it came from, but they knew the berries would not matter anymore. With great excitement over their discovery, they rushed back to camp, eager to show Richter.

When they reached their tents, they stood there, stunned, seeing Richter sitting up on the ground, holding his head and groaning. "Mr. Richter? What happened?"

"He got away," Richter growled. "I was _ambushed!_ I _knew_ there were other pirates around here!" Huffing with rage, Richter paced around a small circle, calculating his next move. It took a double-take for him to notice what one of the pilots was holding before him. Of all the people to be holding it from out of nowhere, he could hardly believe his eyes, and was momentarily speechless. "That can't be..."

"We found it, just laying there," the pilot said, handing it over. "It looks important."

"Buddy, you don't know the half of it," replied Richter. He pried the tome open and flipped through the thick pages, and his deadpan face glowed with pleasant surprise. "Hell, I guess I take back _some _of what I said about you two tenderfoots."

"Um... thanks."

Richter looked up at the sky. A half-smile wrinkled up his cheek. "They wouldn't have dropped it on purpose. Those propellers we heard earlier were from their ship, and it's not here anymore, neither are any of their planes. Karnage is stranded." He shut the tome and tucked it in his arm. "I'll deal with this later."

"Isn't this what we're here for, though? Shouldn't we make this our priority?"

"Right now, our priority is that pirate and however many of his fleabag lackeys are here with him," said Richter, and he searched around ground. "Where's my rifle?"

Amidst their confusion of what Richter was scheming-how he had closed the tome as if to just forget about it-the panthers looked around as well, and finally noticed that they had significantly less possessions than when they were last there. "Our packs are gone! We've been robbed!"

Richter threw them a contemptuous look. "Ya _think_?"

"You think that could explain the gunshots we heard?" one panther asked the other.

Richter raised an eyebrow. "Gunshots?"

"Yes sir. We heard two of them while we were… uh, tracking down a wild boar."

"Which way?"

"Northeast."

Richter stepped close to his face. "You _sure_?"

"Y-yes!" The panther nodded as if his life depended on it being the right answer.

"That's gotta be the pirates. Come on, we're going after them!"

"Uh, begging your pardon, Mr. Richter," the other panther said, meekly stepping forward.

"What?"

"Well, sir, our orders were to secure the location of the excavation site and radio back for reinforcements, not to-"

"Gentlemen, not that I'm not _thrilled _that by some dumb luck you stumbled on a relic that I've been busting my back for years to find, but let me lay this down for you." Richter's tone was that of a vengeful drill sargeant, articulate with a forced calmness that wrestled with with the urge to pop their heads open like soda bottles. "We paid _very _good money and were given _very _specific details for the whereabouts of a _very _valuable treasure, and we have wasted the day following those directions only to find they were a _**total crock**_!" He roared that last part right in the panthers' faces, who about fainted backwards. "We bag Karnage first. The last thing I'm going to do is let that sniveling coward get one up on me."

"But sir, it's getting dark, and we've lost most of our supplies, including the lanterns. Standard procedure dictates that we stay here until morning then return to town to regroup-_ack!_"

Richter grabbed the pilot roughly by the necktie, which, uniform or not, to him was the most rediculous thing in the world to be wearing in the jungle. "_My _procedure dictates that we do things my way, or you can go on your own. Understood?"

"Y-yes sir," he choked.

Richter released him and shoved him away. _'But he's right_,' he thought. _'It'll be pitch black out there.'_ "At first light tomorrow we move out. _Northeast_."

"But sir…"

"Stop _'but sir-ing'_ me!" bellowed Richter, clenching his fist. The panther squeezed his lips so tight he got a cramp in his mouth. "If we ignore the pirates here, then we might as well shoot _ourselves_ in the back. We start thinking about Rhamastan again once I have Karnage's head on a stick, _got it?_"

They nodded.

"Good. Now make yourselves useful and get a campfire going."

"Uh, one more thing, sir…"

"And if I hear one more whine out of you two, I'm gonna have _your_ heads on a stick!" Richter snapped. The menace in his voice went shook through their bones like a shock. It was more incentive to commence work immediately than any paycheck bonus.

Kit and Karnage kept a determined pace, side by side, as if in a race. The growing darkness continued to make seeing more difficult with every passing minute, and by then, their bickering had been replaced by exhausted panting.

"You… are… gettting… tired," Karnage said, one word per breath. "Why don't you just… give up?"

"Me? Tired?" Kit panted. "Never… I could… go… another… ten miles…"

"So… could… I!"

"But it _is_ getting dark… maybe we should…"

"Ah-_hh-_ha," Karnage said, with more of a wheeze than exclamation. "You _do_ want to give up."

"I can keep on as long as you can," said Kit. "But… it's getting hard to see."

"Excuses," Karnage said. "I can still see perfectly- _whoa!_" He tripped over a log, landing chin-first in the soil. Kit, in turn, stumbled over him, and neither one seemed able to move. "H'okay," Karnage exhaled, trying to catch his breath. "Perhaps… we rest."

"Yeah, perhaps." Kit's throat stung from breathing so hard. He rummaged through his backpack, but found no canteen_._ Instead, he took out the lantern and searched further for the matches.

Karnage's ears perked up. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Kit asked.

Karnage listened for a few seconds. "I could have sworn… never mind."

Kit glanced around nervously. "You know, I _really_ wish you saved that last shot."

"Frightened, boy?" Karnage smirked.

Kit scowled and resumed looking for the matches. "No."

"Of course not," Karnage said sarcastically. "It is too bad you cannot be as brave as-" Quickly, Karnage shot up to his feet. "H'okay, _that_ time, I heard something."

"I… I didn't hear anything," Kit said. "M-maybe it was just the wind, if anything."

"Right… just the wind…" Karnage's voice trailed off. "… or 'anything'…" He swallowed. "Are you _ever_ going to get that blasted thing lit?"

"I'm just looking for some stinkin' matches, okay?"

"Oh, _here_," Karnage snatched the backpack away from Kit and dug his hand inside of it. "If you want something done right…"

"… you gotta have me do it for you," Kit muttered to himself.

Karnage found his search to be as futile as Kit's. "I should _keelhaul_ the ignoranimoos who did the packing here!"

"Hold on," Kit sighed. He reached inside his sweater, pulling out a lighter. "Here, I wanted to save this in case the matches ran out."

Karnage blinked. "What _else_ do you keep under there?"

"None of your business," Kit replied, and picked up the lantern to light it.

"Uno momento," said Karnage, taking the lantern and lighter out of Kit's hands. "I do not want you breaking this thing. _I_ will do it."

Kit rolled his eyes and let him be. "Yeah, you do all the breaking you want." His attention turned to the backpack that Karnage had brought, where from it he brought up another lantern. "There's one here, too."

"_Yeow!_" Karnage yelped.

"What happened?"

By the light of the just-lit lantern, Kit saw Karnage stick his singed finger in his mouth. "Nophing."

"Well, at least you didn't break it," said Kit , and handed him the other lantern. "Here, give me that one and light this one, too. And I think we got a problem."

"_Yeow!_" yelped Karnage again, and one more lantern lit. "What problem?"

"Looks like we each got a blanket to keep us warm, but that's it."

"So?"

"_So_, you ever hear of rain? Thunderstorms? This place has 'em all the time, and we don't have any kind of a tent."

"_So_, suppose we do not need a…" Karnage was suddenly interrupted by a clap of thunder from the distance. Resigned to the whole wretched situation, he plopped down against a tree and sighed. "You _had_ to say something, yes?"

"Fantastic," grumbled Kit. He sat at the opposite side of the tree, cocooned himself inside a blanket, and kept his lantern in his lap for the extra warmth. "We'll be swimming out here if it starts raining. I hate this place."

"For once, we agree," said Karnage. He greedily snatched the blanket of his own from his backpack and threw it around himself. "If it was not for _you_, I could be in a nice, warm bed right now, in my own ship, and up to my _ears _in gold."

"Aw, quit gripin'," said Kit. "No one forced you to tag along, you know."

Karnage slowly sunk to the ground, sliding down the tree. "If you want to fight more, boy, at least wait until tomorrow when I am wide awake, so when I throttle you I can remember it."

Kit set his lantern down, flipped the top of his blanket over his head like a hood, and curled up on the ground.

Hours passed. At nightfall, the tree boughs high overhead disappeared in a chilled, moonlit mist. Kit shut his eyes for a moment, then soon after for only brief moments at a time. While his eyes were heavy and begging for sleep, the jungle became louder than ever. There was life all around them, but nothing to be seen in the rustling shadows, and amidst the mighty symphony sang by the frogs and crickets there were the unmistakable howls and growls of the hunting beasts. All of the quivering he did was not from the cold air alone.

Groggily, he sat up. As much as he had enjoyed not hearing a peep from the pirate on the other side of the tree, his pride was no contention to his wanting to wake up in the morning not eaten. "You asleep?" he whispered.

"What-why?" Karnage snapped, immediately enough to tell he had been keeping his ears keenly to the jungle, despite his own weariness.

"Listen, I'll make a deal with you. I don't know what's out there, but if we need to high-tail it outta here, one of us should be a lookout. We could take shifts, you for awhile, me for awhile, one at a time."

"Oh, please, boy. What makes you think I would not rather _leave _you here."

"I guess I'm tired enough to take the chance that you're _not _the lowliest piece of dirt in the world."

"Fine, then. But you take first shift."

Kit rolled on his stomach, hiding his face in his arms. "I'm not gonna..." He yawned. "Make it."

"Of course, I do the hard part," Karnage muttered. "It's always me and my gracious generosity. But I am telling you, you lazy leech, I am waking you up in...!" He stopped when he realized Kit was already fast asleep. The boy's foot slid near his thigh, and Karnage pushed it away as if it carried a contagious disease. "Hmph."

A bird squawked somewhere high above. Karnage looked up, and as he saw no sign of the sky, and considered that _somewhere _up there, his airship was still flying... without him commanding it.

It was only a few months ago that he had left the Iron Vulture in command of Dumptruck, when he insisted on being lowered to Cape Suzette in person instead of using the un-glorious radio to make his demands of the city. And by the time he came back, his crew had threatened _mutiny_. Of course, that fat bear that was glued to his back had something to do with it. Then there was the last time he had let them take the Iron Vulture out without him, and not only had the crew gone completely to pot, he was chased around his own ship by a mad red ape lady who tried to smother him in wet lipstick. Proven time and again, the pirates could never hold together without him.

_'Perhaps, just this one time,' _he thought,_ 'those numbskulled nincompirates will maintain __**some**__ disposure and order without me…'_ He imagined what was actually happening up there, and moaned. "Who am I fooling?"

**

* * *

**

On board the Iron Vulture, the pirates had gathered in the galley to discuss their situation. 'Discuss', however, would not quite befit how the motley bunch held a meeting; in such a forum, shouting, shoving, punching, and name-calling were far more efficient means to express one's ideas.

"You're all a bunch of knuckleheads," cried second-mate Will, amidst the shouts of approval and disapproval from the crew over who should be captain in Don Karnage's stead. "I can't believe what I'm hearing!"

"Why don't ya put a sock in it, Mister Second Mutt," snarled Bandit Patch. "Karnage ain't here no more, and you ain't tellin' us what to do!"

"None of ya know a bloomin' thing when it comes to being a captain," said Will . "None of ya know how to run a ship!"

Mad Dog chimed in, "You gotta be a pilot to be the boss, and that counts you out!" There was a small uproar of agreement to that effect.

"Yeah, we'll see about that," Will replied. "See how far any of you ugly mugs get without my help."

"Yarn-for-brains has a point, though," said Sadie. "Sky-jackin' is our bread and butter. The new boss needs to be one of our best pilots."

Mad Dog nodded. "Yeah! And since _I'm _the best pilot around here, it oughtta be me!" To that effect, there was a larger uproar of disagreement.

"Yer way too skinny to be der captain," said Dumptruck. "Karnage picked _me _last time, remember? _I'm _going to be in charge around here."

"But you got to be capt'n _last_ time," Maddog whined. "_I_ wanna be capt'n this time!"

And then Mad Dog and Dumptruck 'discussed' the matter, which is to say Dumptruck grabbed his scrawny companion by his vest and glared at him nose-to-nose. "Der, _I'm_ gonna be da captain, see? Any _second _nominations?"

Mad Dog gulped. "I vote for you," he said miserably.


	5. Pirate hunting

**Chapter 5**

**Pirate hunting**

Upon the next morning, the dawn was bright, burning away the night mist. And while birds whistled and monkeys chattered to greet the new day, Kit Cloudkicker and Don Karnage snored. Kit had never taken his turn as lookout, and Karnage had spent a grand total of fifteen minutes keeping watch before nodding off.

Their two blankets, formerly one wrapped snugly around each, had somehow, during the chilliest moments of the night, both become property of Karnage, and now rested loosely on top of him; Kit was sprawled out over Karnage's shins, which were poking out of the covers.

Two tiny yellow butterflies fluttered around Karnage's right ear, but lost interest when they realized they had not discovered a new, strange flower.

But the butterflies were not the only things to take interest in the outsiders. From out of the surrounding bushes, a snake-like vine slowly slithered along the ground and approached the two. It recoiled, as if in surprised discovery, as it touched Karnage's hand. Then, continuing its examination of the odd creature it just found, it slid across the wolf's chest, then down to Kit, skimming the boy's face. Kit scratched his nose and continued to snore softly.

Then, the tip of the vine circled twice around Karnage's ankle, and tightened. His eyes flew open. "What? Boy, what are you _doing_?"

"Wha-?" Waking abruptly, Kit pushed himself away from Karnage. "What's goin' on?"

"What is _that _on my-_heeeeey_!" The vine tugged hard, and Karnage clung with white knuckles to the tree he had been resting on.

Kit's eyes widened. "What _is_ that thing?" It reminded him of the graphic illustrations he had seen in books of sailors' tales, where a giant squid would capsize a galleon and seize the crew with its squirming tentacles.

"Well do not just be doing something, _stand_ there!" Karnage hollered. His claws shaved the bark of the tree as the vine pulled harder, lifting his leg up in the air.

Kit dug through his backpack and came up with Richter's buck knife, but before he had time to flick it open, Karnage lost his grip, and therefore the battle, but he was not about to lose alone: he grabbed onto Kit's ankle and towed him along for the ride!

Shouting for their lives, they were dragged through all the many bushes the vine had ventured came from, and hoisted into the air upside down.

"What _is_ it?" Kit screamed.

Gasping, Karnage dropped the boy on his head at what he saw. In a throbbing haze, Kit looked up, and saw the same. Rising from its nest of large leaves and regurgitated skeletons of consumed prey, the jaws of a gigantic carnivorous plant prepared for an incoming meal. Kit recognized it as the type of plant Shere Khan kept in his office, but Khan did not have one that could swallow a _Catallac_.

Crouching upward, Karnage frantically tried to pry his foot free, but to no avail.

"You gotta _cut_ it!" Kit shouted.

"With _what_?"

Kit held up the knife. "With _this_! Catch!" He threw it to him, but Karnage wasn't ready. The handle hit him in the head and deflected back to the ground somewhere, and vanished in the dark foliage.

"Ow!" Karnage yelped. "What are you trying to _do_?"

Kit slapped his forehead. "Cripes, you're _hopeless_!" Suddenly, his legs were stealthily snatched by another vine, taking him up as well. "_Whoa_, hey! This isn't good!"

"If you have any more _estupid_ ideas," huffed Karnage, "I suggest you speak them _now_!"

"I'm… I'm all out of ideas!" Kit replied. "Maybe one: _help_!"

The plant went for Karnage first. It dangled him right above its jaws, opening wide. Kit looked away; the wolf's cries were suddenly muffled as the plant dropped him into its gaping maw, engulfing him.

"Ohmygosh!" Kit gasped.

Its cheeks puffed with its capture, but it was seemingly having trouble chewing… then suddenly Karnage stood up inside, pushing its jaws apart with his hands and feet. "Get me _out_ of this thing!"

"You're alive!"

"No, I am a _ghost_, you simpering simpleton!_Do something!_"

"Hold on!" Kit managed to wriggle his ankles from the vine's grasp, and once again fell on his head. "Ugh," he moaned. "That's starting to smart!" He had to find the knife, fast, and crawled to where he thought it fell. "Just keep it busy!"

Given the struggle he was in, Karnage had no problem doing just that. The plant crunched down hard on him, and between that and Karnage pushing up, he folded up and down like an accordion. "_Hurry_!"

Kit searched frantically, but keeping a wary eye on the squirming vines at the same time. "I'm _trying_!"

With much effort to avoid the plant's small, but many, jagged teeth, Karnage put his hands and feet on its 'lips,' one at a time, a last ditch effort to get out. "What is taking so long?"

"I can't find the knife," Kit said. "I don't suppose you saw where it fell after it hit your head?"

Karnage gave him an exasperated but murderous look.

"Okay, okay. I guess you didn't."

"_Whoa_!" yelped Karnage. Suddenly snapping its jaws shut and jerking its head back, the plant sent him flipping like a flapjack. But the captain had not given up just yet. He landed on top of the creature's head, and clamped the plant's mouth shut with his arms and legs.

Over a patch of long grass, Kit came to a pond, and saw an object glistening at the bottom. "I found it!" he exclaimed. "Hold on!"

"What does it _look like _I am doing?"

Kit waded into the water, and, unfortunately, his feet kicked up a brown cloud of mud with each step, blanketing the ground. Closing his eyes, he dunked down and blindly felt for the knife until he found it, then resurfaced. "All right, I'm com-_ack_!" No sooner than he opened his eyes, another treacherous vine quickly wrapped around his neck and yanked him out of the pond.

The plant's head tried like mad to shake Karnage off like a wild bull at a rodeo, but the captain was holding tight. "Oh no you don't!" Out of a sheer impulse of anger, he bit down on its green flesh, tore a chunk off and spit it back out. "_*ptooey*_ How do _you_ like it, you worthless weed?"

Choking, Kit tried to keep his head (in more than the proverbial sense), as well as a hold of the knife. He plunged the blade hard into the vine, slicing it lengthwise. Squirting a thin, green blood all over his sweater, it loosened its grip, and he could breathe again. After a small gasp, he wheezed, "See how you like _this_," and plunged the knife in a second time. It finally released him and retreated into the ferns from which it came, and Kit fell to the ground, coughing. Then he noticed the green muck on him. "Gross, what _is_ this stuff?"

"_Boy!_" Still clinging for dear life, Karnage was getting a little desperate for help.

"I got it," Kit said, raising the knife. "Uh… now what?"

"Attack it!" Karnage ordered. The mouth was beginning to beat him in their test of strengths, and inched open.

Kit looked at the giant plant in awe. "_Attack_ it?" He couldn't have touched it even if he wanted to; it was too high, and too far back in its tangled fern fortress of a nest. "_How_?"

"_Stab_ it, you idiot!"

"I can't reach it!" Kit had an idea, though. "Look, I'll throw the knife up to you. It can't stand being cut!"

Karnage gripped the mouth harder, his forehead burning red with anger. "And… just… _how_ am I supposed to catch it?"

"Uh… darn." Kit thought for a few seconds. "I got it! I'll make the knife stick to it, _then_ you grab it!"

Karnage's eyes became like saucers. "_Stick_? You do not mean…"

Holding the blade with his fingers, Kit wound it back over his head. "Just don't move."

"No no no no, bad idea!" Karnage shouted. "_Bad_!"

"I saw you do do it hundreds of times, I can do it!"

"_I_ was good at it! _You_ stank! Don't you dare!"

"I can do this," Kit said confidently, although only for his own sake. He had indeed seen Karnage do it many times before, and for all that was taught in technique and target practice in those days, Karnage was indeed correct of his assessment of the boy's inability to hit the broad side of a barn while standing next to it. Not to mention how intensely the plant was shaking to make Karnage let go.

"It is the only weapon we have!" cried Karnage. "You're going to lose it or hit _me_! If I die here, I swear I am going to strangle you!"

"Yeah, well watch this!" Kit wound the knife back and thrust it forward, but only as Karnage finally lost the wrestling match. The plant's jaws opened wide, swallowing the captain... and the knife.

"Oh no…!" croaked Kit. But the blade of the knife suddenly punched through the roof of its mouth, then tore all the way down to the jaw, spraying green goo everywhere like a geyser of slime. The plant hissed and quivered in agony, then fell to the ground with a heavy, squishy thud.

"What the-!" Kit tripped over his own feet and fell backwards, but not taking his eyes off the monster.

Panting, Karnage pulled himself from the cut he just made, and threw the knife in the dirt, seething. "You chose the wrong pirate for breakfast, _didn't_ you, you overgrown shrub!"

Kit could hardly believe it, a little impressed, despite himself. "You're okay!"

The captain was having trouble pulling his legs out, though, and ended up tumbling to the ground, which made him even angrier. He was not hurt, but when he got to his feet, he noticed he was completely covered in the bleeding plant's slime. He whimpered in horrified disgust and outstretched his arms.

"You want a napkin?" Kit grinned.

Karnage threw his arms around violently, sending green globs flying. "Shut up, you! I _hate_ plants!" He went to kick the dead plant, but slipped on the slime, and landed on his back.

Kit rolled backwards in hysterics as Karnage let out a scream of frustration.

"What are _you_ laughing at?" Karnage tried to get to his feet, but slipped again, this time doing the splits. He felt like yelling again, but wouldn't the boy the satisfaction. So, calmly and slowly, he raised himself up, trying not to shudder at the goo dripping from his body. "There."

"What? Should I clap now?"

Karnage scowled, and started stepping towards him. "Perhaps you should _run_ before I-" Two steps and he slipped again… this time he absolutely refused to fall, but his feet just wouldn't find traction. The result: Kit watched him sway, kick, and spin like a dizzy can-can dancer away from the plant, towards the pond.

_*splash*_

Kit casually walked to the water, grinning smugly. "Well, that's _one_ way to rinse off."

Karnage cursed in Spanish and swiped his hand across the pond.

**

* * *

**

From behind the cover of a mossy bolder, Colonels Jackson and Taylor crouched down, cringing at the sound of bones and sinew being snapped in the midst of a gurgling death rattle.

"Damned varan," Richter huffed, angrily but proudly standing over the lifeless creature. It had just attempted to ambush them, and a brief but intense wrestling match ensued, which Richter won the upper hand by grabbing its horns and pinning it down on its jaw, and finished by sinking his machete deep into the creature's neck. "I owe the gash on my leg to one that snuck up on me." He looked over the corpse, and saw it was already wounded. "This one's been shot; recently, too."

"We... we heard gunshots last night," said Jackson. The two braved their way from the bolder, knees shaking. They passed by the varan lightly on their toes; though it was nearly decapitated and painted in its own blood, it had attacked in such suddenness and ferocity that there was no solace against the fear of it as much twitching one of its claws. "I never saw it coming. Look at those teeth... it was going to rip us to shreds!"

"Not right away," said Richter, amused at their cowardice. "That drool dripping from its mouth is pure venom. They love to fight, but once they've bit you, they'll toy with you, enjoying the show as your body shuts down, slicing your hide up with their claws until the paralysis completely sets in. If you're lucky, you'll bleed out when they eat your legs, or you might watch them rip your gut open and tear your insides out."

Behind their black fur, the panthers turned pale as ghosts. "How... if it one bit you...?"

"Bastard came in for the kill too early. I took its head off." With is bloodied machete Richter made a cutting gesture around his own neck, and laughed loudly when the pilots' eyes glazed over. He spotted his rifle at the base of a granite cliff, and picked it up. "That'd explain what you heard. The fleabag's must've climbed the rocks to get away from it. We're on the right track." After checking and finding the ammunition spent, he set the gun on top of the cliff. He then took a few steps back, and with a short charge, hoisted himself to the top. "Let's go," he called back to the panthers. "We got a lot of time to make up for."

They looked up at him, then at each other, dumbfounded. One finally piped up to the other, "Uh, why don't you give me a lift up and I'll-"

"Wait a minute," the other protested. "Why _me_?"

The two started arguing, and had Richter been within arms reach of them, how he would have loved to knock their heads together. "Criminy," he sighed. "How did I wind up with _these_ two?" He turned back to the edge of the cliff. "On second thought, I want you two to head back to town. I'll find you there."

"To town? But our orders were to stay with you."

Then Richter _really _wanted to knock their heads together, disgusted entirely of such pretense. "Your _orders _were to make sure Khan was notified if I found his precious glowing rocks, nothing else," he said. "I'm going pirate hunting, you won't be able to keep up. The city is two days walking time, straight west from here. Take the gear, I won't need it."

"But- but Mr. Richter," one stuttered. "Those lizards... what about if something-"

Richter abruptly kicked his rifle down to their feet. "There, you got the shells packed, you got your pistols, too. You see anything, _shoot_ it. You two nature-boys think you can at least do that?"

They looked at him, as nervous and puzzled as ever.

"Two days, west." Richter said, starting on his way. "I'll meet back up with you..." As he picked up the pace, he muttered, "… maybe."

**

* * *

**

At Higher for Hire, Rebecca slouched over the kitchen counter, absently tapping her fingers against an empty teacup. She stared at nothing in particular, oblivious to the piercing whistle of a boiling kettle.

Baloo walked up behind her and looked over her shoulder. "Think yer tea's done, Becky."

She jumped as if startled, and turned the stove off. "Oh!"

"The cops get back to you?"

"I just got off the phone with them a minute ago."

"An' what'd they say?"

She frowned as she tipped the kettle against the teacup. "They said as soon as any officer sees the Iron Vulture, they'd be sure to pull it over and ask about Kit."

"Oh. Sorry."

"It's okay. I don't know what I was expecting them to say." Then she noticed he had traded his pajamas for his regular pilot garb. "Baloo, what are you doing? The doctor said it could be dangerous to fly."

"You don't think a bump on the head's gonna keep me from findin' Kit?"

She shook her head and sighed. "You know, I've been thinking of when the pirates had us all cornered on their island, and he pulled a lot of tricks to get us out. Somehow, I think he's still okay."

"Yeah, I know." Baloo grinned, half-heartedly. "He'll be okay right up until I wring his neck."

"Just be careful. _Please_."

"Don't worry. I still know what I'm doin'."

**

* * *

**

"For the last time, I _know_ what I'm _doing_," Kit told Don Karnage. He snapped his compass shut and tucked it back in his sweater, then stuffed the map back in his backpack.

"That is what you said when you tried to climb that tree for the fruit," said Karnage. He nervously swatted the back of his neck, remembering.

"Well how was _I_ supposed to know there was a beehive up there? Besides, that food looked good, and I'm starving." Kit sat down on large rock, resting his aching feet.

Karnage did the same, at the other end of the stone. "I could eat the _culo_ off of a dead rhinoceros," he said quietly, then asked, "Then you _do_ know where to go from here, yes?"

"Yep." With his thumb, Kit gestured behind himself. The Atronador Heights stood proud and tall, abruptly ending the forested area with their steep, rocky cliffs. Dense shrubbery grew near where Kit and Karnage sat, but sharply disappeared as the slopes reached further into the sky.

Karnage regarded the peaks with exasperation. It was almost like staring at the top of a skyscraper from across the street, but this climb had no elevators or stairs. "I… _how_ are you supposing we get up there?"

"We _can't_," Kit answered. "Not straight up and over. According to the map, there's a route we can take that's more shallow. It's a long hike out of our way, but I don't think we have a choice."

Karnage suddenly heard a growling noise, and snapped his head around to see. "What was that?"

"My stomach," Kit replied, grimly.

"Oh." Karnage turned away again, uninterested. He had his own stomach to think about.

Up ahead, toucans decorated the forest green trees with colorful spots of red, orange, and yellow. Tired, hungry, and bored, it was easy for a mind to wonder in a moment of rest; Karnage zeroed in on the birds on one at a time as they moved about, getting lost in the waves of swaying branches and sudden streaks of vibrant color. The hypnotic effect took his mind away from his own hunger, until…

"Bananas!" Kit exclaimed.

Karnage blinked. "Watch your language, boy-wait, what?"

Kit pointed up at a tree, where large banana bunches grew. "Look! We can eat those!" The boy got to his feet and stood directly under it. Unfortunately, it was far too high for him to reach. "Come on, gimme another boost."

"Hmph." Karnage didn't move, but muttered, "I would like to give you a boost with my _foot_."

Kit waited, impatiently. "You gonna get off your duff or what?"

"I have had enough of your stinking feet on my face, thank you very much," Karnage replied.

"Fine," said Kit, waving him off. "Who needs you?" He wrapped his hands and legs around the trunk and started climbing, and Karnage rested his chin in his palm, watching him. What he wouldn't give to see Kit slip and fall flat on the ground. The corner of his mouth twitched upward, just imagining it.

With small grunts, Kit reached the top of the tree, and used his legs to wrap around the trunk while he pried four bananas from their bunch, dropped them to the ground, and slid down to retrieve them. "Piece of cake," he said, dusting off his hands.

Snorting resentful regards, Karnage refused to even look at the boy as he proudly sauntered back to the stone and sat next to him. _'He thinks he is always the clever-type person,' _Karnage thought. '_And he is not even __**me**__!'_

In no time, Kit finished his first banana. He tossed the peel to the side, and eagerly began on a second one. As he ate, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Karnage looking at him, practically salivating. Slowly, Kit turned his head at him. "Yes?"

Karnage quickly looked away, inwardly snarling. '_I do not care __**how**__ hungry I am… I would rather __**starve**__ than ask that… that… __**filthy flea**__ for help!'_ Then his stomach rumbled_. 'Quiet, you boistering belly!'_

Kit heard it loud and clear, but pretended to ignore it. He took the last bites of his second banana, taking almost half of it in one mouthful_. 'I guess it would be pretty mean of me to not offer him just __**one**__…' _He swallowed, and started on his next one. '_Heh heh heh.'_

Karnage felt like he was going to pass out if he did not eat soon, and studied the banana tree ahead. '_Hmm, if the boy could do it… surely it could not be __**that**__ difficult.'_

Thus, he promptly got to his feet, and marched determinedly to the tree. Kit raised an eyebrow as he watched him approach it and the manner in which he stood there, wringing his hands and sizing it up for a climb. "Oh boy…" he muttered dryly. "_This_ oughtta be good."

Karnage rubbed his paws together as he stood before the trunk, recalling how Kit climbed it. Before he began, he glanced behind him. Kit had stopped eating and was watching him, but once eye contact was made, he instantly looked away, as if he couldn't care less.

"Humph," Karnage huffed. He wrapped his arms and legs around the trunk and clung onto it. He could not quite figure out how to put his legs; right over left, left over right, right over left again…

By then, it was Kit's turn to watch chin-in-palm. "And me without a camera."

"I heard that!" said Karnage. He had finally decided on left over right and was almost to the top. "Ah-_ha_! You did not think that _I_ could do it, did you?"

Kit shrugged and tossed his last banana peel aside.

Karnage smirked. '_If the boy took four, then __**I**__ can take them __**all!'**_With both hands, he tried to pry the entire bunch from the tree.

When Kit realized what he was doing, he began to utter a warning: "Uh, I don't think that's such a good-" But he stifled himself. "No, wait. This _is_ going to be good."

"Come on, you infuriating fruit," Karnage grunted, pulling down with all his might. It simply was not working. Then he tried another tactic, and wrapped his arms around the entire bunch, trying to shake it off.

Kit pictured it so clearly in his head… Karnage's legs losing grip on the trunk, the captain dangling from the bananas, slipping and falling on his tail… Somehow he wasn't too surprised when it actually happened.

Sitting on the ground, Karnage shut his eyes, shaking with anger. The mere _thought_ of the smug grin he was receiving from Kit made his blood boil. In his fists were two smushed bananas that he had grasped onto, the spoils of his effort.

"So _that's _how it's done," said Kit, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

Karnage took a deep breath, and glared at the fruit in is hands. "I _hate_ bananas," he hissed, and commenced peeling.

**

* * *

**

Jesse Richter plowed through the jungle at double pace, clearing small trees from his path each with one enormous backhand. He panted heavily, taking mile after mile with little rest. He swore at the searing pain in his wounded leg, and, in a fit of defiance, pushed himself to a full sprint and swore louder. His leg buckled while going over a giant tree root, and he toppled into the mud.

He stifled more swearing and focused his eyes straight ahead, reverting back to his military training, when he learned to control pain by focusing on the task at hand, mind over matter. He pictured Karnage getting away free, and living to boast about it at his expense; that was all he needed. Richter stomped through the mud, picked up speed as a heavy locomotive building steam, and charged forward.

This kind of endurance was nothing new to him. His life had always seemed to center around his unusual gift of size and strength. As a child, he would wrestle, box, and pick street fights with teenagers twice his age. When he was sixteen, he lied about his age and joined the army, just years after the end of the Great War, where he was placed with a platoon specializing in 'gorilla' warfare. It was during a training exercise deep in the Atronador Basin that he saw his first ruined Felocian citadel, and became intrigued by the legend floating around of a lost golden city.

He was well learned in survival tactics and combat, though never much for firearms; he could hold his own when it came to game hunting with a long rifle, but most guns were too small and clumsy in his hands to be effective. When he left the military to follow his new fascination, he quickly found that treasure hunting brought no immediate reward, and he supported himself through the years self-employed as a mercenary, traveling the world for a variety of contracts, from bounty hunter to bodyguard, all while absorbing any iota of knowledge to be found about ancient Felocia and keeping his eye on his goal.

Once hired by Shere Khan, free and financed to relentlessly turn every stone one by one in search of Rhamastan, the Atronador Basin, unforgiving as it was, became a home away from home. In time he rarely relied on maps, but became familiar enough though his studies and experience of exploration to confidently sense his way through the jungle.

He slowed to a halt when he came to a small clearing. Something colorful on the ground caught his attention. "Banana peels… they've been here."

He rested his boot on top of the same stone Kit and Karnage formerly sat upon, and leaned against his knee, finally taking a moment to catch his breath.

"It makes no sense," he mused, gazing at the mountains. "Where the hell are these guys going..." He wiped the sweat from his brow and stretched, arching his back. The sun had already begun to tint gold, ever so slowly descending. Sunset would be less than an hour away. Looking on the ground, he noticed faint footprints embedded in the soil; he could only make out two distinct tracks, and one of them seemed suspiciously small... but he could tell which direction they went, and that was all he needed to know.

**

* * *

**

Late that night, like diamonds on black velvet, the moonless sky sparkled with more stars than Kit had ever seen before at once.

Behind him, Don Karnage grumbled as he tried to find a comfortable lying position. But sleeping on solid rock with a single blanket was not exactly something he was used to, and he gave more than his fair share of ranting about doing so before finally turning in.

After hours of hiking, they had followed a narrow path hundreds of feet up a mountain and were camped alongside a cliff that overlooked much of the jungle. It was a man-made path, rugged and ancient, that cut into the granite slopes and curved behind a nearby waterfall that they would pass under in the morning.

The falling water lulled Kit with its soft hiss. Now and then the breeze would carry a cold mist to his face, prompting him to tug his blanket more securely around his shoulders. He sat up as he gazed at the sky and horizon, exhausted but not quite sleepy. The grand treetops of the Atronador were laid before them like a still, silver sea. Moths flickered around their two fading lanterns.

Karnage expelled a heavy sigh and rolled on his side, cursing anything and everything that was harder than his mattress on the Iron Vulture. He looked at Kit from behind. "You have not been to sleep yet?"

Kit jostled a little as if he had been caught off guard, and shook his head in reply.

With a grunt, Karnage sat up. His voice was soft, tired. "I have not slept a winkle."

"Wink," Kit corrected.

Karnage yawned and wiped his eyes. "Is what I said."

A few moments passed; Kit moved only as much to blink. Karnage studied him for a while, trying to figure his thoughts out. He looked up at the sky above, wondering what was so fascinating. "Flying saucers, boy?"

"Just thinking," replied Kit. "It's a big sky. And a big jungle... tomorrow's day number three."

"Don't remind me," groaned Karnage, and once again tried to lie down with some measure of comfort.

"What do you think's there?" Kit suddenly asked.

Karnage raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"In this Rhamastan place," said Kit. "I wonder what it's like."

"Treasure," Karnage said quietly. "And lots of it. How much farther must we go?"

"Not too far," Kit replied. "We could be there by tomorrow…" He sighed, remembering Baloo's words. "If it's not buried under ten feet of snow."

Karnage made no reply to that; even if the boy had a point, did not even want to consider such a discovery.

Kit drew his knees close to his chin and closed his eyes. "But we'll finally be rich," he whispered to himself. "And Miz Cunningham won't have to worry about paying bills anymore. And Baloo could buy back… buy back…" His throughts were drowned deep in doubts. He wanted to live more than he wanted to be rich. For every miserable moment spent in the wilderness risking their skins, all to reach a mere mark on a map, what if where _wasn't _anything there.

At length, he asked Karnage, "You want to just try to get out of here?"

"You want to _give up_?"

"I don't _want _to, I'm just saying, it's something to think about. Whatever we do, we're stuck in this mess together."

"Don't remind me of _that_, either. And leave the thinking to _me_, will you? I know how to do it right."

"Huh," scoffed Kit . "Clam chowder."

"Oh, shut up."

"Gorilla birds."

"I said, shut up."

"Diamonds hidden in icebergs."

"I am trying to get a _little _sleep tonight, thank you!"

"You were doing fine a while ago," Kit replied, adjusting his blanket and lying down himself. "Either that or you're the only person I know who snores while he's awake."

"I do _not…_ snore."

"Take my word for it…" Kit closed his eyes and settled. "You snore."

"I do not!" Karnage protested. "_You_ on the other hand..."

"_I_ don't snore."

"Ha!"

"Aw, dummy up and go to sleep, will ya?"

"Yes, _do_ that."

"_Fine_."

"_Fine_! And I do not snore."

**

* * *

**

"Doesn't snore," griped Kit as he readied his backpack; the rising dawn as bestowed upon them a new day, and they woke at first light. "Should've brought my earmuffs."

Karnage knelt by the waterfall, washing his hands and face. It would be a long time before he would take a hot shower for granted.

In the horizon, a smokestack of black clouds billowed across the sky, blocking the rising sun. Kit had seen countless thunderstorms before, but hardly one that moved so fast and strong; it sent a chill down his back. "That doesn't look good."

"No, it does not," Karnage agreed, staring at the incoming storm with the same fascination, although for not quite the same reason. "But you know… if there were only clouds like that around Cape Suzette more often, I could sneak over them with the Iron Vulture and-"

Kit interrupted his daydream. "Just come on, okay? That thing's coming this way, and I don't want to be standing around in it."

One half-hour later, Richter trudged up to the same ledge Kit and Karnage had been camped at. He had known where the mountain path was and how to get there, but the night for him was long and painful, finding his direction through starlight in almost absolute darkness. He had slowed considerably, taking long breaks throughout the night.

Again, his eye caught a trace of the pirates on the ground… a brass button that must have detached from Karnage's coat. He saw or heard no signs of aircraft, and certainly no other vessel could have taken the pirates. They had to still be on foot, and he could still catch up with them.

He crouched to take a drink from the waterfall. Thunderclaps echoing in the distance caught his attention. "Terrific," he grumbled, eyeing the inbound storm. _'I don't feel like playing in the rain. I better catch 'em today, or else...'_

**

* * *

**

"Will you forget about it already?" Kit said, annoyed. "It was just a dumb button!"

"It was not _just_ a button, boy," Karnage objected. He halted, looking at his belly. The last button on his right side was gone. "It does not look right!"

Kit threw his arms in the air. "So what? You've got a whole _closet_ full of coats exactly like that one!"

"It's the _principapal _of the thing!" Karnage retorted. "And keep out of my closets, you snotty snoop!"

"Would you also like to know what you keep under your mattress?" smirked Kit.

"Under my…? Why you-!"

"Just thought I'd ask," the boy shrugged. Some people liked to start their morning off with a fine cup of hot coffee; for Kit, the best part of waking up was getting under Karnage's skin.

Further down in their path, Karnage continued, "_Now _I know why I hardly saw you. You were always busy poking your nuisance of a nose in my things."

"Wha'?" That made Kit stop and abruptly face him. "You hardly ever saw me because you always had your head in the clouds!"

"You always _hided _from everyone. I see _everything_ on my ship!"

"Especially your own dumb ol' reflection." Disgusted, Kit turned and walked away. "I don't even wanna talk about it."

Karnage followed, bewildered. What anyone could find revolting about looking at his reflection just didn't register. "So I look at my wonderfully handsome self! Who would not?"

**

* * *

**

Soon afterwards, the two came to a deep ravine, of which they stopped at the edge of to observe their next move. It was easily two hundred feet to the other side, where a more forested area resided. Stormy black clouds loomed overhead, flashing with lightning. Rain had not yet started to fall, but it would not be far behind.

"Do not be telling me…" Karnage began.

"We gotta get on the other side," Kit finished.

"I _told_ you not to be telling me that."

Then they took a peek below them. It was at least a five-hundred foot sheer vertical drop, where rushing white rapids of a great river knifed between the cliffs. Swallowing, both stepped away from the ledge.

"You did not say anything about _this_," Karnage said. "I suppose we are to flap our arms and _fly_ to the other side?"

"You can if you want," Kit replied. "But I think I'll try the bridge. According to the map, there's one somewhere around here. It should be just upstream."

When they found the bridge a few moments later, Karnage frowned as he examined it. "That is not a bridge, boy. That is _toothpicks_ on _string_!"

For what it was worth, his discernment was not far off. The bridge was thin and long, made of a series of narrow planks, supported by two ropes that strung across the ravine, with two more ropes suspended above it as makeshift handrails. The middle sagged by several yards, and rocked in the amassing wind. Two large stakes in the ground at both ends bound it all together.

"It… it looks strong enough," Kit said uncertainly. "Uh… _you_ go first."

"I think I would rather flap my arms." The captain tapped his toe on the first plank, testing its fragility. "_You_ go first. You are closer."

Given that he was standing _behind_ Karnage, Kit gave him an incredulous look. "What are you talking about? I am not."

Karnage grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him onto the bridge. "You are no-ow," he grinned.

"Hey!" Kit complained; then he grimaced. "I can't believe I fell for that."

Karnage nudged him further. "Go on boy, shoo."

"All right, all right, quit rushing me!" Slowly, Kit stepped forward, delicately adding his weight to each plank. The wood was soft and weathered, and felt light and hollow like cork under his feet; he sidestepped on the edge, while Karnage straddled the sides, watching Kit's steps as well as his own very carefully. Both of them keeping their feet as much as possible on the underlying ropes, for they seemed stronger to hold together than the middle of the planks. The further they went, the more the bridge wobbled… and creaked. Though neither one had ever held a fear of heights, they forced themselves not to look down.

When they reached the middle of the bridge, Kit stopped, dead still. "Do you _feel _that?"

"No," lied Karnage. "Go, go, go!" The shaky tension of the ropes made the once curved sag a straight and shallow 'V' shape, and directly ahead, one of the stakes that bound the ropes was leaning, more and more as the bridge wobbled, on the verge of snapping.

Kit's voice was excited, but he kept it to a whisper as if he risked inciting an avalanche. "We're too heavy. We gotta go back!"

"Are you _estupid_?" Karnage replied. "We are too far!"

Breathing uneasily, Kit kept a death-grip on the railing rope with both hands… so did Karnage. "It's not gonna hold! Whatever we do, we better do _fast_ or this is gonna be one heck of a high-diving act!"

Karnage could not disagree. "Perhaps we could, as you say, pull chunks," he suggested.

Kit cringed. "That's... _chocks_."

"Whatever! We can run to the end before it goes!"

Given that Kit's feet were anxiously yearning for solid ground, it was a tempting idea. "But we can't… we move like that and it'll snap before we even get close."

Karnage raised his voice. "Are you wanting to just _stand_ here and enjoy the view?"

"Okay, okay," gulped Kit. "Fast, but be _easy_.."

"I am _always_ easy! Now go! Go, go, go!"

Kit started sidestepping at double pace, trying his best to move smoothly. Karnage hastily followed at his heels, literally. "Ow!" Kit yelped. "Quit kicking my ankle!"

"If you do not _hurry_ I will be kicking your-!"

A sudden bolt of lightning hammered into the side of the ravine just behind them, sending shattered stone flying all around them. Gasping, they fell forward, covering their heads as if under an air raid. Bits of rock pelted the bridge and their bodies.

"What is happening!" Karnage hollered. Just when he thought it was safe to look up, a final falling chunk bounced off his head. "Ouch!"

Kit's heart pounded. It was not until he was sure the bridge was still holding that he breathed again. "It was… just lightning," he said shakily.

"Yes, _just _lightning!" Karnage said.

As Kit got back to his feet, he stared straight ahead towards the end of the bridge, as if mentally commanding it to stay intact. That was all he wanted to concentrate on, getting across, and not looking back. _'Almost there,' _he thought, _'almost there…'_

But Karnage did not move. His attention was ensnared upon something behind them. "Boy… the bridge…" His voice was faltering.

Kit went on, not hearing him, probably by choice.

"… is on fire," Karnage said.

Kit stopped. _That_ he heard. "What?"

"It is on _fire_!" Karnage repeated anxiously through gritted teeth.

Kit snapped his head back, finding Karnage was right. Along with what sparse shrubbery grew along the cliff-side, the bridge had been set ablaze, with the flames greedily consuming the rope and dry, brittle wood at a fast pace. "Oh my gosh…!"

"Rain clouds, eh?" said Karnage scornfully at the sky. "Then were is the _rain_ when you need-wait, what am I doing just _standing_ here? Out of the way, boy!" He made a sudden beeline for the other side, and the bridge shook madly.

"Wait!" Kit put a hand up, trying to stop him. "Watch out! It's gonna-_no_!"

It was too late for warnings. The fire had eaten through, the bridge snapped, and the wooden planks suddenly fell from under their feet. Screaming, they clung to the rope for dear life and swung like two trapeze artists before slamming into the rocky cliff. The bone-jarring impact was so solid that they felt their teeth rattle. Kit lost his grip and fell on top of Karnage, almost knocking him off as well.

"_Boy_! _Look out_!"

Dazedly, Kit rolled down Karnage's shoulders and grabbed onto his backpack; it promtly snapped from Karnage and fell into oblivion, Kit almost with it, but he clawed out blindly and caught onto Karnage's coat pocket, ripping it open; then he grabbed onto the only other thing he could get his hands around.

"_**Yeeooww!"**_ Karnage howled. "Let go of my tail!"

Kit blinked as he gathered his wits. He was losing his grip on the wolf's tail, too. He slid off, taking two fistfuls of fur with him, and latched back onto the rope with his hands and legs. Looking down, he watched with dread as the last plank of wood from the bridge fell into the raging river below.

"I… I _told_ you that would happen!" Sensing that they were at the mercy of a weakening stake above and ounces counted, Kit was through taking any more chances. He made sure his legs were snug enough around the rope, and let his backpack fall. It hit the water without even a splash, and never resurfaced.

"What did you do _that _for?" shouted Karnage. "I hope you are satisfied, you loud-mouthed leprechaun! Now what?"

"Now _shut up_, that's what!" Kit shouted back.

Karnage boiled with fury. "If my hands were not busy saving myself, I would strangle your scrawny-type neck!"

"If you don't quit pulling this rope around we're gonna be _**dead!**_"

Karnage paused, and took a good look below. A dizzy spell washed over him as he thought about the pending fall.

"Just… climb," Kit said, in a calmer tone. "_Easy_, okay?"

"Fine…" Karnage put hand over hand and scaled higher. "But if this rope breaks, then I blame it on _you_ and all your blasted bananas!"

"Just hurry it up," said Kit. "I'm not gonna die arguing with _you_."

"Oh, no no, I _want_ you to make it to the top… so I can strangle you _then_!"

Grudgingly muttering about needing a 'chiro-practicer', the captain eventually hoisted himself to safety. The first thing he did was give his tail a test-wag to make sure it wasn't broken.

Kit was almost there, reaching for the edge, while Karnage, exhausted, absently leaned against the weakened, bending stake. Kit just barely poked his head up far enough to see. "Huh? N-no!"

It broke snapped in two, and Karnage tumbled to the ground. Before he realized what was happening, Kit let out a cry and dropped out of his sight, and the rope whipped off the cliff. _Then_ it dawned on him. "Oh… oopsie."

For a beat, he just sat there, mind blank. _'The boy is… gone?'_ He curiously peered over the edge. "Boy?"

"Help!" Kit was clinging to a clump of roots and shrubs that sprouted from the cliffside.

"You did not fall?"

"I'm trying _not_ to! _Do_ something!"

"Do not be yelling at me!" Karnage ordered. He scanned behind him, looking for something, like a vine, that he could use to bring Kit up. There were trees, bushes, leaves, dirt, rocks, a few birds here and there, but no vines... though he could swear he had swatted one hanging in front of his face every ten paces through the jungle thus far, never one when it was needed.

"I can't hold on any more!" Kit hollered. "Hurry!"

"I am _looking_!" yelled Karnage. But there was simply nothing for him to use. "I cannot believe I am even _trying_ to save that worthless whelp," he muttered.

"Karnage!"

"O-_**kay!"**_ Karnage roared. He got on his stomach and reached down. "Here! Give me your filthy hand!"

Kit tried to reach, but he was just inches too far. "You gotta find something!"

"But there is _nothing_!"

"_Find_ something! Anything!"

"I told you do not be yelling at me! Is it _my_ fault you are the midget with the short arms?"

Kit wrinkled his nose at him. "I'm _not_ a midget!"

Karnage sat up, searching for ideas. "Something… something…" From his torn coat pocket, a red kerchief had fallen out by his side. It was lengthy enough, perhaps not strong enough... but for present company, that was a risk he was willing to take. He wrapped it around his hand twice, tightly, and got on his stomach, lowering the cloth toward Kit.

Almost trance-like, Kit stared into the river below. Even if he had his airfoil to save him from the fall, it would do him little good in a current like that. The mesmerizing effect broke when he felt something dangling at his wrists.

"Here!" Karnage called. "Grab this!"

Kit didn't need to be told twice. He managed to grasp the cloth with one hand and finally grab the pirate's wrist with the other. Above, Karnage braced himself and pulled the boy to the top.

"That was… too close," Kit panted, wobbling to his feet. He had never been so glad to be on solid ground. Then he glanced at what was clenched in his hands, a scarf... a seemingly very familiar one. Speechless, he stared at it, then looked at Karnage questioningly.

Karnage only rubbed his arm, casting upon him a contemptuous look. "You know that you are _fat_ for such a tiny toad, yes?"

"What… where did this come from?"

Karnage swiped it from Kit's hands. "What? Is only a nose-blower." He put it up to his nose and honked loudly. "See?"

In such a demonstration, however, Kit's puzzled expression did not change. "You keep that with you?"

"I have _lots _of them, I don't know what you are talking about," Karnage scowled, and threw the scarf at Kit's feet. "It is _nothing_. I do not even want it anymore, now that your putrid paws have been all over it. So there!"

"All this time…" Kit said quietly. He picked it up, not sure what to think.

"Bah, you are looney in the _cabesa_," Karnage scoffed, and started away into the trees. "_I_ am going."

His eyebrows knitting in contemplation, Kit watched him storm off. Raindrops began to drizzle from the dark clouds, accompanied by another growl of thunder.

_'I guess it __**is**__ nothing,' _he thought. _'Its gotta be. He'd never… not after… would he?_ _Nah…'_ Kit held the scarf over the cliff's edge and opened his palm, allowing the corners to float in the breeze, as if waiting for the wind to arbitrarily pick it up and send it away forever.

From the other side of the ravine, Richter wiped his face and squinted, seeing a small figure in green disappear into the forest. "Bingo! I got 'em now!" With a great boost of speed, he sprinted along the cliff-side, looking for the bridge that would take him across. "It's gotta be _somewhere_ around here... should be right-_what_? You gotta be kidding me!"

He came to a stop near smoldering pieces of wood, furiously grinding his teeth. There was not a way he could follow them. With wrath exploding inside him like the lightning blasting above, he kicked the charred wooden stake into a cloud of black ashes. "_**Karnage! **_Dammit, I'm gonna _bust_ you in half! You hear me? You're mine!"


	6. The storm

**Chapter 6**

**The storm**

"This way!" Kit yelled, but his voice so drowned in the howling winds that Karnage could scarcely hear him. A cloak of gray fog draped over them, so dense they could scarcely see ahead of themselves. Sheets of rain lashed down unmercifully, with chunks of hail hurling through the branches overhead like meteorites, and animals yelped and scurried through the woods in search of shelter.

"_Which_ way?" Karnage frantically turned to and fro looking for the right direction, shielding his head with his arms. Just nearby, a bright crash of lightning obliterated a tree, setting its branches ablaze before the rain drowned it all away. A panicked flock of birds blindly shot through the fog. Karnage _barely _saw them out of the corner of his eye before diving to the ground, just missing getting clipped.

He sloshed in the mud on his hands and knees, the wind making him squint as he tried to scan the area. "Boy! Where are you?"

"Get off me!" a muffled voice shouted from underneath him. Now caked in mud, Kit shoved Karnage away and wiped the muck off his face. "What's the big idea!"

Another bolt of lightning struck the ground nearby, close enough to make their wet fur tingle.

"We must get out of this storm _now_!" Karnage yelled.

"Come on!" Kit got to his feet and started to dart away, but tripped on a tangle of grass and received another faceful of mud.

Karnage leapt over him. "This is no time to be playing in the mud, boy! Hurry!"

Kit coughed and spat. "_Playing_?"

Under a thick growth of brances, Karnage spied a niche between the trees, a natural shelter from the rain. He made a beeline for it, but his hopes were quickly deflated when he suddenly found himself eye-to-eye with a large viper. It reared its heavy, thick body and hissed, brandishing fangs glittering with venom. Karnage giggled nervously and stepped away. "Begging my pardon… _your_ tree."

"Over here!" Kit called. Through a clearing in the fog, he spotted an opening in a rocky slope, a cave. Panting and sopping in water and mud, Kit made it inside first, and dropped to the ground. His body still tingled with the pelting sensation of the rain and hail.

Then Karnage stumbled inside, panting heavily. He leaned his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. "I… I am socking in wetness… and… and…" He looked at his muddied pant-legs and sleeves. "…_icky_!"

Kit wiped another muddy glob off his face and scowled at him. "_You're_ icky?"

"Yes, _I_ am icky!" Karnage snapped. "And it is all your fault! And I hope you are _happy_ now that everything we had is gone!"

Kit got to his feet-more like wobbled to his feet-and stood up to him. "We were too heavy for that rope and you know it! So excuse me for saving your life!"

"Sa-_saving_ me? If it was not for _you,_ I would not even _be_ in this pestering predicament!"

"Hey, don't try to pin this on _me_!"

"Why not? It _is_ your fault!" Karnage yelled. "And for what? You come onto _my _ship, you steal _my _map, and all for what now? _Nothing_! Nothing is all we have!"

"Well _I'm_ not the one who broke the stupid bridge!"

"_I_ am not the one who ate twice his height in bananas!" Karnage retorted. "_That_ is what made us too heavy!"

"_I_ am not the one who didn't listen to my warnings _not_ to run!"

"_I_ am not the one that needed me to _save_ his filthy fur from falling!"

"_I_ am not the one who moped and complained like his life was over just because he lost a stupid button!"

"I told you, my coat is _**uneven!**_"

Irate, Kit plucked the mate button off Karnage's coat and chucked it out the cave. "There! _Now_ it's even!"

Karnage was scandalized! "Why you-! _I_ am not the one who lost my treasure map!"

"_I _am not the one who knocked it outta my hands and made me drop it!"

"_I_ am not the one who tried to steal it and _made_ me make you drop it, you butter-fingered baboon!"

"_I _am not the one who stole it in the first place, ya lousy crook!"

Karnage's nose twitched in anger. For a moment, he didn't know what to say. But it was a brief moment.. "_I_ am not the one who-who ruined perfectly good furniture on my ship trying to kill a _cockroach_ with a _cutlass_!"

Kit blinked, then retorted, "_I_ am not the one who found my airfoil and tried to use it as an _hors d'oeuvres plate_!"

"_I_ am not the one who was always sniveling at me to let him fly, when he was too short to even see over the _'consolable'_!"

"_I _am not the one who listened to _Danger Woman_ every week and thought it was _educational_!"

"_I _am not the one who I taught to _handle_ knives like a worthy pirate, but kept leaving them on my chair for me to find by _unpleasant surprise_!"

"_I _am not the one who spent two hours in the bathroom every morning singing to himself in the mirror!"

Karnage gritted his teeth. "_I_ am not the one who scurried under my feet for a year and learned nothing but how to _stab me in the back_!"

"Wha'?"

"You heard me!"

"_I_ am not the one who went completely _nuts_ and tried to burn down an entire _city_!"

"_I_ am not the one who-!"

"_**Shut up!"**_Kit screamed at the top of his lungs, making Karnage flinch. "Darn it, I'm sick of arguing with you!"

Karnage lost what composure he had left, grabbed Kit and shoved him against the cave wall, squeezing his fingers into the base of the boy's neck. "I have taken _**all**_ I will take of your malignant mouth!"

The stifling pain made Kit wince, but he could not pry the Captain's fingers loose. However, his feet were free to kick.

_*thump*_

"_Ow-hoo-hoo_!" Karnage let go of Kit and clutched his shin instead, hopping on one foot. With a grunt, Kit shoved him backwards, sending him sprawling in a tangle of arms and legs, then fell down himself, coughing.

They stared at each other. Then Karnage slowly spoke, clenching a fist, "You have no idea what you… what you..." He stopped speaking, closing his eyes. Then as if every ounce of his energy had been suddenly drained, which was not far from the truth, he rolled onto his back and took a long, deep breath.

For an instant, Kit thought he fainted.

"This is getting us nowhere," Karnage moaned.

"Real fast," said Kit.

"We have nothing. No map… no radio…"

Kit looked out at the storm, and finished Karnage's thought inwardly. _'No blankets… no lanterns... it's dark in here. And cold…'_

With some effort, Karnage sat up. "You still have the lighter, at least?"

"Uh, yeah…" Kit dug inside his sweater for it. With a few flicks, the lighter's small flame sprang to fragile life, dimly lighting the cave. There was an old pile of firewood, a broken wooden crate, and an rusted tin pot next to them. "Looks like we're not the first ones here," said Kit. The rest of the cave was bare, save for weeds sprouting from the cracks and scatterd aboreal debris blown in from the wind; farther back, the cave went far too deep and was too dark to see. "I just hope we're the _only _ones in here."

"We need a fire," said Karnage. "That junk over there... it will burn, yes?"

"Yeah, I think so. It doesn't look wet." Kit went to sort out the pile of wood. To his surprise, Karnage did the same. He could not quite figure out how they managed to go from screaming and fighting to civility and teamwork, but then again, he had already realized that no matter how much he wanted to get away from Karnage, if he wanted a chance of making it back home, especially now, he rather depended on a little help. And if he knew Karnage at all, somewhere along the way, he had realized the exact same.

Together, they broke down the old crate and gathered the firewood, and separated it all into two piles-one to start the fire, and one to add to it later on. Kit applied his lighter to the prior, blew gently, and soon a campfire whispered to life.

They sat cross-legged, opposite each other. Karnage peeled off his boots to empty the mud and water from them, and wiggled his aching toes with a relieved moan. Then he removed his coat-which had certainly seen better days-thoroughly wrung it out, and spread it on the ground next to the fire to dry. Kit did the same with his sweater. He emptied out its hidden pockets, including his broken airfoil, compass, and pocket-watch. The compass was fine, but when he opened the watch to check the time, he found it waterlogged, and the crystal had shattered. He put it to his ear and shook it, but heard no ticking. It stopped just after eleven o'clock. Disappointed, he sighed, and set both aside. "I liked that watch…"

It was not yet noon, but already the sky outside was as dark as twilight, lit frequently by bright bursts of lightning. Rain and hail hitting the rocky mouth of the cave gave a chorus of a thousand tap-dancers stepping as if their lives depended on it.

Karnage rubbed his hands and arms in front of the fire. He was warmer now, but still could hardly keep from shivering. Suddenly his nose wrinkled. "Ah… ah… ah-_CHOO!_"

The big-winded sneeze made the fire jump and Kit flinch. Karnage moaned and cupped his snout; it looked like the elements were taking their toll on him.

"You're… you're not gonna throw up or anything, are you?" Kit asked, cautiously scooting a few inches away.

Karnage put his hands down and frowned at him. "If I do, that is your fault too, you pestilence-spreading pip-squeak."

"Me? How me?"

"Come now, boy. _Everyone_ knows that little children are full of filthy germs."

Kit rolled his eyes. "Oh pu-_leeze_."

"It's true!" Karnage argued. "You children are _always_ playing in the dirt, wiping your wet noses on your hands, touching and putting everything in your mouths… if it were not for you, there would be no diseases. And I would not be getting an estupid cold right now!"

Kit rested his cheek in his hand. "You're a marvel, you know that?"

Karnage sneezed again, this time harder than before, and scowled at him accusingly.

"Aw, you'll live," said Kit. "I've been worse spots than this and pulled though."

"Do not be telling me if I will be living or not," Karnage snapped. Kit arched an eyebrow at him. "Oh, shut up. You know what I mean. And _when_ have you been in worse spots?"

"Lots of times," Kit told him. "Try spending a rainy night in the back of an alley sometime. In the _winter_. A cave with a fire is a fancy suite compared to that."

Karnage was clearly unimpressed. "Aww, the little boy with no home. You will excuse me while I find a violin, yes?"

"You know what you can do with it, too," Kit sneered. "You don't know anything about it."

"You think not," Karnage said quietly. "It makes no difference, anyway. You cannot _possibly_ be as miserable as I have been these last three days."

"Oh no?"

"No! At least _you_ have had the pleasure of having _me_ around. Look who _I_ have been having to put up with!"

For a moment, Kit was so stupefied by Karnage's reasoning he couldn't even choke out a comeback. Seeing this, and getting the last word in, Karnage seemed very pleased with himself. Kit just looked away, though eventually he started to chuckle. "Let… let me ask you a question," he said. Karnage's ears perked up. "What exactly _is_ it that gives you the notion you're so… wonderful?"

Karnage looked genuinely surprised. "You cannot be serious."

"Yeah, I am. I wanna know. I mean, for as long as I've known you, you've gone on and on about how great you are, and how better you are than everyone else. I gotta know. Just what is it that makes you think that way?"

"It is a silly question!" said Karnage. "_Anyone_ who has heard of the feared and handsome pirate Don Kar_rr_nage knows. Including _you_."

"Not really. I don't." Kit crossed his arms as if challenging him, and Karnage realized it, so the captain up straight and proud.

"Because I _am_," said Karnage.

"Huh, you can't come up with one reason."

Karnage waved him off. "I do not have time to be playing your foolish question-type games."

"No time?" Kit looked around the cave with exaggerated, sarcastic movement. "What, you going somewhere?"

"Do not be playing the wise-guy with me," said Karnage. Kit stared at him, still waiting. "_What?_ What is there to explain?" Karnage extended his arms, presenting himself, as if the answer was obvious. "_Look_ at me!"

"We've been scratching to survive in the middle of a jungle for three days," said Kit. "Believe me, buddy, you're not looking so good."

"Listen _boy_, when _I_ look into a mirror, I see the most amazing… the most _dashing_ person alive, pirate or no. Certainly it is not _my_ fault if an ignoranimoos like yourself cannot see the same."

"Uh-huh," Kit said dryly. "So you think you're handsome. Big whoop. And you think that makes you some sort of gift to the world?"

"I did _not_ say that... but... I am liking the sound of it! Just think of all I have done! My wealth, my fame, my crew, my planes-the_ Iron Vulture_, boy-they all did not grow on a tree in my backyard, you know. And you think those needle-headed ninnies on my ship know _anything_ about being _true_ pirates? _I_ am the master-minder who brought the reign of piracy to its fullest-most glory! Because I _could_, and, I _did_. So _that_, you inquizzing little quack, is your answer!"

"Whoa whoa, wait a minute!" said Kit. "So you got away with a lot of stuff, but you're no stranger to failure, either."

"Not since I met you," Karnage grumbled. '_Ooh, I wish someone could have heard that one!,' _he thought.

Kit shrugged off the insult, but he cocked his head to the side, contemplating him. "So it's that simple, huh? Being a flashy pirate makes you number one?"

"Yes," answered Karnage. "_That_ simple. Now will you shut up your face?"

It made sense, Kit figured, although he would have loved to get Karnage to realize how ridiculous he was to believe it… a seemingly impossible task. "Yeah… forget it."

For the next several minutes, neither one spoke. Karnage stared at the flickering fire, occasionally glancing wearily at the thunderstorm, which showed no signs of abating. Kit absently drew on the dusty ground with his finger. His thoughts drifted back to Cape Suzette, wondering about what was going on at Higher For Hire at that very moment, and more so, how Baloo was. _Dryer _and _warmer _came to mind, among other suppositions.

Karnage, meanwhile, thought about the state of the Iron Vulture. He pictured food all over the galley, a hangar that looked like it had been ransacked… and worst of all, someone sitting in _his_ chair on the bridge. He could just see Mad Dog sitting there, enjoying the priviledge, infesting it with fleas… or even worse yet, _Dumptruck_ sitting in it. That bulky bozo's rump would surely warp the cushion all out shape. "Ooh! If he even goes _near_ my bed, I will sizzle him in his own fries!" he suddenly yelled aloud, startling Kit, who looked at him like he was insane. Karnage cleared his throat, slightly embarrassed. "Dumptruck, I meant. I want him to keep out of my bed, you know?"

Kit's jaw hung loose. "Uh…"

"I _mean_ when I am away, like now," said Karnage, then quickly amended, "_And_ when I am there, of course. Do not be giving me that dumb-in-the-face look!"

"Aw, I know what you meant. You miss your ship."

"I do not _miss_ it… I just ehm… am not used to being away from it for so long, is all."

"What about having a crew to boss around?"

"_That_ I miss, yes."

"Thought so." Kit picked up his airfoil and looked at it for a long moment, saddened over how it looked like a twisted piece of scrap metal. He put it over his knee and pushed on it in an attempt to straighten it out, if for even a little.

"Where did you find that thing, anyway?" asked Karnage.

"I didn't find it," said Kit, not taking his eyes from it. "I made it."

"Made it," Karnage muttered. "Of course you did."

"I found everything in a heap of junk in Ratchet's workshop. He was cutting sheets off shot-up airplane wings and wielding them back together. I saw some of the shapes he cut, and the idea started to come to me. I just kind of figured it out and pieced it together. Only took a couple of days."

Though his face read that he was certain the boy was fantasizing, Karnage believed him. He did not like that he believed him, either; it was another reminder of how the one boy he knew to live and breath aviation would never be shooting down planes under the insignia of the Jolly Roger. He did, however, offer one opinion of the boy's craftsmanship: "Well, it breaks easy."

While it became clear that the airfoil was not going to straighten, Kit tinkered with it for quite awhile, absently for the most part, thinking of matters far away from the desolate cave. At length, he laid the airfoil aside, and went back to watching the storm.

_'If the boy is not dumb-in-the-face he is __**dull**__-in-the-face,' _Karnage thought, noticing Kit's glum expression. He could almost read his thoughts, though… that he was missing that fat pilot he liked so much… and probably that annoying business-lady he worked for, too.

It was an odd feeling for him, realizing Kit was homesick. He never considered the boy to be interested in much of a "normal" civilian life. _He_ certainly was not, and would not have expected it of a boy who, as far as he knew, ran away as an orphan from food, shelter, and the prospect of ever being adopted into a family.

After a long, awkward silence, Karnage took a breath and tried to sound casual. "Since I answered _your_ question, boy, now you answer one for me, yes?"

Kit's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "What?"

"In the time before I was so… _bless-ed_ with your annoying acquaintance, why did you want to be a… what is it called… a dare-to-lick?"

"A dare-_huh_?"

"You know, _homeless_."

"What kind of a question is _that_?" Kit shot back, offended. "I didn't just _want _it to happen."

"My my, testy little termite, are we not?" smirked Karnage.

"The only place I ever lived before that was at an orphanage, and you already know that. So, what?"

"Exactly that!" Karnage said. "They did not kick you out... you ran away from there."

"It was a long time ago. Why should you care?"

"They gave you food there, yes?"

"Well, yeah, but…"

"_And_ a bed to sleep at night?" Karnage found it enormously gratifying to be the one cornering Kit into something _he_ did not want to mention for a change.

"You don't have the first clue what it was like," said Kit. That was all he wished to say of it, but he found himself being pressed by an attentive, yet patronizing stare. "Okay, fine. But if you make another violin crack, I swear I'm gonna-"

Karnage cut him off. "Oh, shut up and spit it out. I'm not getting any younger, you know."

Kit grumbled something unintelligible (though the word 'old' was likely in there somewhere), then said, "If you have to know, I ran away from there because it was like living in a prison. You'll prob'ly know what that's like pretty soon."

"How very clever," Karnage said sarcastically. "Trying to change the subject?"

"No... I just hated it there. The folks who ran the place weren't bad people, they tried. It's just... there you were, and nothing was going to get better about it. It's not like there was anything worth waiting for... so I got out of there. At least when you're on your own like that, you can do things your way... at least _try _to make things happen. That's the way I like it."

"Like this little _vacation _you made happen," grumbled Karnage.

"Yeah, well, knowing where you're gonna wake up tomorrow is pretty boring," sighed Kit. He noticed Karnage had a resentful gleam in his eye, though he doubted the wolf was thinking so much about the jungle at that point.

Kit picked up a stone and studied it for a moment, thinking of the gem he swiped out of Karange's hands on the day he renounced the pirates; he tossed it into the fire. "Lots of people think that just because you're a kid, they can treat you like something they just scraped off their foot… I hate that. You didn't know this, but when I was a pirate, I used to…" He hesitated, realizing he had already answered the question well enough. "Never mind."

"No no, go on," Karnage said. "What about 'a pirate'?"

"Since when are you so interested?"

Karnage slumped forward. "Since I became bored and wish to be amused."

"Then why don't you step outside and play lightning rod?"

"Oh please, boy," the captain clasped his hands together imploringly. "The suspense is _killing_ me!"

"No, that's the smell of your upper lip," said Kit, and he thought, _'Dang, I wish someone could have heard that one!'_

The wolf's face fell… then he looked stupefied. He curled his lip up to his nostril and sniffed. "There is nothing wrong with my-"

Kit fell over backwards in a sudden fit of laughter. It made Karnage cringe like someone had driven an icepick through his ears. "Oh, _very_ funny, you screeching screwball. Are you going to finish your story or not?" Though he would not admit it, his curiosity was piqued at what Kit was about to say; he always _knew _the boy had the time of his life aboard the Iron Vulture, and that Kit would go at lengths to deny it just to be spiteful.

Kit sat up and wiped his eyes. "Well…" All it took was one more glance at the Captain's lip, and he was back laughing hard enough to make his ribs hurt.

Karnage snorted indignantly, followed by reddened cheeks. _Why that-__**no one**__ laughs at me! I will show him…_ "Perhaps you should know, that while you are laughing… there is a big black spider on your arm."

"Nice try," Kit sputtered between chuckles. "Am I supposed to act like a dufus and look now?"

Karnage shrugged. "I have been looking at it for the past two minutos. I think it likes you."

Kit's eyes widened like saucers. He cautiously tipped a glance on at his left arm… where an inch-long arachnid comfortably nestled on his tangled fur. "Aauugh! G_etitoff! Getitoff! Getitoff!_"

Now it was Karnage's turn to laugh, as he watched Kit squirm and flutter until the spider fell to the ground. It scampered away on its fuzzy legs into the darkness.

"Hee hee! Scared of an itty-bitty spider, my boy?"

"_Itty-bitty_?" Kit panted. "That thing was all legs and fangs-it was _smiling_ at me! Why didn't you say something about it sooner?"

"Oh, I am sure I had _some_ reason," the wolf smirked. "What do you know, the courageous Mister Cloudkicker, afraid of-wait, that thing did not crawl _this_ way, did it?"

"I don't think so…" Kit searched around him for any other eight-legged creepers.

Karnage laughed again. "You should have _seen_ the look on your face!"

Kit shuddered at the thought of it crawling on him, but then started thinking about his reaction; his mouth cracked with a sheepish smile. "Well… I guess I did look pretty silly."

"Now _that_ we agree on!"

"Pfft. Better write down the date."

"So then, you were saying about when you were a pirate?"

"What, you really want to hear?"

"Why not? It is either listening to you or the rain… and the rain is getting on my nervatures."

"Well, I had this friend there once, at the orphanage, I mean. He got sick one time, with a really bad flu. And we had what they called 'inspection'... that's when we'd all line up and a someone would look us over. Sometimes it'd be some sort of social worker, sometimes a couple seeing who they might want to adopt, like we were on some sort of auction block. There was this one lady who came, I don't know _who _see was, really, but she was the swanky type, big fancy hat, high heels, and a clipboard. And I guess she was really proud of herself that she was taking the time to check up on us poor little orphans. It was all a big crock. She'd walk up to each of us, and just stare at us for a minute and write something down on her board. Then she saw my friend, and he was a mess because of his flu. His eyes were red, his nose all runny... he was so tired he could hardly stand up straight. And she had the gall to sneer at him... she muttered something like, 'Oh, goodness, how disgusting.' Right in front of him, for cryin' out loud."

"And?" Karnage asked impatiently.

"Well, I knew he was hurt by it… we all did. And she could've cared less. I just couldn't stand it, so I let 'er have it."

Karnage's eyes brightened. "You _hit_ her?"

"No, but I told her to shut up… loud... and with lots of words. I called her just about every name in the book. I was just so mad..."

Though it had less violence than he would have preferred, Karnage was actually amused thus far... and he wasn't even in the story. "And what happened?"

Kit grinned ruefully. "She stood there and turned purple," he said. "I wish I had a picture of it. The headmaster had to put his hand over my mouth to get me to stop… Then when I finally did, she chewed _him_ out in front of everyone for having such 'undisciplined brats,' and stormed out of there."

"Then what?"

Kit chortled, though somewhat sadly. "I think I spent the rest of the winter growing back the fur I got skinned off."

"I see…_ I_, of course, would have torn him a new nose-hole."

Kit shook his head. "Fighting back wouldn't have done any good. I got it pretty good… and all because of that snot-nosed swank."

"And…" Karnage checked his coat to see if it was any dryer; it was, but not by much. "Still waiting for the _pirate _part."

"I guess it just makes me think of when we used to heist something from those kinds of uppity, prissy people..." A devilish smirk crept up on Kit's face. "I always used to wish we'd somehow nab that one... maybe make 'er clean the latrine with some cotton swabs."

"Careful now, boy," Karnage grinned. "You might make it sound like you had fun."

"Well, it wasn't always _that_ bad…" Then Kit shot Karnage an icy stare. "But nothing worth sticking around for, that's for sure."

Karnage threw his arms in the air. "Oh-ho-ho, listen to the ungrateful gorilla now!"

"What exactly do I have to be _grateful_ for, anyway?"

"How _estupid_ can you be? Look at all I gave you!"

"I dunno. Fleas?"

Karnage ignored that one. "What about a home in the clouds? Food in your belly!" Then he pointed at Kit's sweater on the ground. "That shirt you still wear!"

"Get off it, Karnage," said Kit. "You never gave a flying fruit basket for anyone but yourself. All that ever mattered to you was you!"

"You think you know everything."

"I know _you_."

"You know _**nothing!**_" Karnage suddenly roared, a frigid growl nested deep within his voice. Startled, Kit looked at him in disbelief. Something had hit a nerve.

Karnage wiped his mouth and collected himself. "What am _I_ getting angry for? I have nothing to answer to you about. You had your chance, boy. All the adventures and the flying, you could have had a _fantastical_ life! You could have been with _me_!But no-o, _you_ wanted to be the do-good-for-nothing _boy of Baloo's_!"

"Leave Baloo out of it. Besides, he's twice the man _you_ are."

"Ha!" laughed Karnage, patting his stomach. "You are telling _me_?"

"And he flies _circles_ around you."

"Oh really? Then why am I always pillaging his cargo?"

Kit folded his arms. "You're just jealous, you know that?"

"J-_jealous_?" Karnage sputtered.

"That's right. I know it, you know it."

"_Me_? Jealous of that fat, stinking-of all the-Don Karnage does not _do_ jealous!"

"Yeah, whatever you say," Kit said coldly.

There was a long pause between the two. They listened to the sounds of the storm. Karnage watched as a lone bird in the misty distance fought the wind, but was helplessly swept backwards by the mighty gusts. Kit picked up his sweater and slipped it back on. It was still damp, but at least warmer now.

"You _really _care about that, that… _him_?" Karnage suddenly asked.

Kit was quiet for a long moment. "Yeah."

The wolf sighed, shaking his head. "Boy, boy, boy… what happened to you."

"He's my best friend," said Kit . "We look out for each other. Shake your head all you want, I don't care. What would you know about having friends?"

"Hmph." Karnage examined his claws, scraping the dirt from underneath them. "Way too much, you Benadict bear."

Kit only heard a mumble. "Huh?"

"Nothing," Karnage said bitterly. The nerve of that boy, he thought, after taking him under his own wing, conveying that he, the suave-and-dashing-sabers-flashing pirate he was, was no more than an ugly green ogre that no one in their right mind would ever befriend. Then, after thinking for a moment, an old memory suddenly floated to the surface-one that, if told just right, might put Kit in his place-and Karnage resumed his familiar smug expression. "I _said_, as a matter of factory, there was once someone I… _tolerated_."

"Tolerated?"

"_She_, of course, worshiped the ground I walked on. Just one of the very many, if I do say so my-adorable-self."

"Oh boy," Kit groaned.

"It is the truth! She adored me and I lo-I _let_ her."

"_You_ in love? You never told me that."

"Believe me, boy…" Karnage scooted backwards until he was able to lean against the cave's wall. "There is _much_ I never told you."

"Uh-huh… who was it, then?"

"Her name was... not important," the pirate replied. He had a faraway glint in his eyes, suddenly caught off-guard by his own recollection. "I have not thought about her for ages. Oh, my boy, she was… _something_."

"Yeah?" In spite of himself, Kit was a little intrigued, for he had considered himself quite skilled at telling when Karnage was bluffing, and this was not one of those times. "How long ago was this?"

"I was… eighteen years old."

If it was difficult for Kit to picture Karnage falling in love, it was downright impossible to imagine him at eighteen. "Wow."

Karnage frowned at Kit's awed expression. "It was not _that_ long ago."

"What'd she look like?"

"Well, she had long, dark red hair, and such _sly_ green eyes. She was very, uh…" Karnage made abstract gestures at his chest. "Lump-tuous."

"I think that's volup-volp-aw, close enough."

"Ah yes," Karnage sighed fondly, remembering. "My vo-lumptuous vixen."

"Where was this at?"

"It was a town called Boomstone," Karnage explained. "Such a _cruddy_ place. Dirty streets and horses _everywhere_."

"That's a cowboy town. What in the world were _you _doing there?"

"Is not important _what_ I was doing there."

"Yeah, but-"

"Do you want to hear what happened or not?" snapped Karnage.

"No, go 'head. This I _gotta_ hear."

"And you should!" Karnage bragged. "Just because I am a man of adventure and freedom does not mean I am not the ladies' pirate, you know."

Kit stifled a groan and let him continue.

"The first time I saw her was when I walked into a saloon."

"Let me guess… she was sitting at the bar and you sat next to her."

"No… she grabbed me from behind and put a gun to my head."

"_Huh_?"

Karnage cackled. "She was _robbing_ the place! I saw everyone lying on the ground with their hands behind their heads… and before I knew what was going on, I was her _hostage_!"

"You're kidding."

"She told me to shut up and do what she said… and that if anyone gave her any trouble, she would fill the gap between my ears with a bullet."

"So what'd _you_ do?"

"After we were outside, I realized that she was loaded with loot…" Grinning, he added, "And I just happened feel a bit empty in my pockets, you know what I'm saying?"

"You tried to rob _her_?"

"Of course!" Again Karnage pretended to study his claws. "I grabbed her gun, tripped her, and made her hand over her bag of goodies. She could not believe it!"

"Neither can I… then what'd _she_ do?"

"Then _I_ took the money and ran into an alley. I was just about to open the bag and count what was inside when she tapped me on my shoulder… and ehm… should we say she had quite a powerful kick for someone so slender."

"Good ol' shins."

"No, in the…" Karnage coughed, and drew his legs a bit closer together. "…_elsewhere_."

"Did she get her money back?"

"Almost… I dropped the gun and we wrestled for it. _Then_ we heard the police coming… we did _not_ want to stick around, yes-no? So, we called a truce, _both_ grabbed the bag, and ran for it."

"What about the gun?"

"We forgot it, but it was not important… I was _liking_ this lady. It seemed we had so much in common. Like our dropping-dead _gorgeous_ looks!"

"How'd you guys shake the cops?"

"We went to her motel room," Karnage answered.

Kit blushed. "Oh."

"It was not like _that_… she did not live in that town. But she and I, we started talking… and laughing. We told each other all about our wonderful selves. Soon I started to think there was _nothing_ I wouldn't do for her."

"Did you guys split the money?"

Karnage shook his head. "Since she did all the work to steal it, I decided I wouldn't try to take it from her."

"I bet you wanted to, but she threatened to break your neck if you tried."

"Well, y-_but_," and Kit was expecting a 'but' from him somewhere, "We made a deal," Karnage amended. "We agreed to meet again the next day, and discuss plans to ride into the next town and rob a _bank_… together!"

The more Kit heard, the more unbelievable it all sounded. "Who did she think you were, Wild Bill Hiccup?"

"Impressed?" the captain asked smugly.

"Well, did it _work_?"

"Three days after that, we took a trip to the next town, and when we were done, we were _ten thousand dollars_ richer," Karnage declared gleefully. "That was just _one _adoring female fan of yours truly."

"But you're not together. What happened after?"

"_Who cares_ what happened. The point is-"

"She dumped you," Kit blurted.

For a split second, Karnage recoiled as if jabbed by a knife. Had it not been likely to fuel such suspicions, he wanted to cry foul at the line of Kit's questioning. "I _told _you, no woman can hold me down."

"What'd you do to make her leave?"

"What is it with you that makes you think everything is always _my_ fault?"

Kit just handed him a look that read, 'You kidding?'

"It was nothing _I_ had done," Karnage said. "Besides… you would not understand. She just was not ready for… for someone like me."

"Well, what'd _she _do, then?" asked Kit. "I'm just curious, since you brought it up. It's not like whatever you say is gonna end up on the front page of the newspaper."

After a moment of silence, Karnage sighed and concluded the story: "After the bank, we rode to another town. Ten thousand dollars, half of it mine… then, it was more money than I ever had. I was rich! I could have had anything I wanted. So, I… I spend-ed the night with her... but when I woke the next morning, she was gone… with all the money."

"Ouch," winced Kit. "Adoring female fan, huh?"

"_Her _loss," the wolf said softly. Then he frowned, considering how he had somehow lost the bragging rights he was aiming for in telling the story. "Forget I said anything."

"But-"

"_Forget_ I said anything," Karnage interrupted, this time with more authority. "Only _you _could ruin a perfectly good story about my great greatness!"

Kit shook his head. "Don't tell me you had _feelings _that actually got hurt."

"Think what you will, I could care less." Karnage once again picked up his coat; it was still too damp for his liking. "Will this blasted thing _ever_ dry?" he growled.

"Wait a minute, I thought the whole point of telling me all this was to prove you could care for someone besides yourself."

Karnage raised an eyebrow. "_Excus__e_? I have _nothing_ to prove to you, boy."

"Then why the heck'd you tell me all that for?"

Karnage waved his finger at him, in a parental 'watch-your-mouth' gesture. "You know, there was a time when I quit being amused by your foul-in-the-mouth face… like _two minutes_ after I met you!"

Kit's temper began to rise again. "For cryin' out loud," groaned Kit; his temper was swelling again, and at that point he very much did not want to waste the waking energy he had entertaining Karnage with another fight. "You know, you happen to be the only person I can think of that makes me _want _to swear, if that tells you anything."

"Yes, it does," Karnage said, waving his ever-so-prominent finger at him again. "It tells me _you_ are still a rude, beastly little brat with no _proper_ respect, and could stand to be taught some manners!"

Kit tightened his fists, on the verge of flinging a handful of dirt at his face. "I got your manners _right here_, buster."

"See? You _never_ used to speak to me that way. _I_ taught you respect!"

"What are you _talking_ about? We argued all the time!"

"But _I_ always won, the way it is supposed to be."

Kit sighed loudly and cast his eyes aimlessly at the ceiling, pleading for a Higher Authority to drill some sense into Karnage's skull. Most preferably, with a real drill.

"_And_ you know perfectly well that back then, if you swore at _me_, boy, you would be eating _soap_ for dinner!"

Kit wiped his mouth on his sleeve, remembering that one incident, shortly after he joined the pirates, when he made a little 'outburst' during an argument. He wanted Karnage to take him flying, but Karnage insisted he was too busy and had to sharpen his cutlass. After the incident Kit did not have to literally eat soap, but nonetheless had a pretty big mouthful of suds. Afterwards, he chose his words more carefully in the captain's presence, and Karnage never again rhetorically asked him, _'And what do you think I should do with my sword?'_

"Then why _did_ you tell me about that girl?"

"The _point_, which you ruined with your big mouth and boring questions, was how others quite naturally _flock _to me."

"You know, I guess I was wrong about you," Kit said. "You're even more full of it than I thought."

"Full of it? How dare you-!"

Kit shouted him down: "Just who do you think you're fooling anymore?"

"_Fooling_?"

"Yeah! Here's a breaking newsflash, your goons _aren't_ here! You're not impressing anyone, get it? I can see right through you."

"You listen here, you lousy leech, I-!"

"And my name is _**Kit!**_" he shouted. "_Not_ lousy leech, _not_ filthy flea, and not any of those _other_ stupid names you're always calling me! Read my lips! _Kit_!"

Karnage pursed his lips wryly. "_Kit_."

"_Thank_ you," Kit said huffily.

"Huh." Karnage went back to scraping dirt out of his claws. "It sounds like a sneeze."

"At least it doesn't sound like gar-_bage_."

"I would not be talking about what _my_ name rhymes with if I were you, boy."

Kit rolled flat on his back and let out a long, frustrated groan. "This is just great," he said to the ceiling. "Just stinkin' great, stuck here with the biggest bag of hot air since the Houndenburg."

"The ceiling wants you to shut up, too" Karnage said, picking more dirt out of his claws.

"Geez… I dunno how we _ever_ got along before."

Karnage looked up at him. "Who are _you_ trying to fool now?"

"Whaddaya mean by that?"

"Come, boy, you _loved_ being a pirate. You said so yourself."

Kit looked at him incredulously. "No I didn't. I couldn't have made a bigger mistake."

Karnage shook his head. "I do not believe it."

"What, you think you're some kind of shrink doctor now?"

"The truth is the truth… admit it. You had fun when you were with me!"

"That's ridiculous." Kit turned his head away and pretended to watch the storm, wanting Karnage to drop the subject.

"Boy," Karnage spoke with the bickering and one-upmanship fading into a tone of deep seriousness.. "You did what you did, and you left. I do not care about that. But try to tell me you hated it… I know better. _I_ saw it in you."

Kit still ignored him… or at least appeared to do so.

"Remember the first time you came with me on a heist?" asked Karnage. "For that buried gold?"

**

* * *

**

Their memories traced back to a time when it had not yet been two full weeks since Kit had landed himself with the sky pirates. The small tropical island of Zaui was a favored vacation spot for tourists, sun-seekers, and adventurers… not to mention a preferred locale of seafaring pirates to hide their ill-gotten booty. When the Zaui Museum announced it would be displaying the newly discovered buried treasure of Captain Jacques Lette Mousse, who terrorized the high seas some two hundred years ago, it was more than enough to warrant Don Karnage's attention.

It was well after midnight. The pirates had landed one of their seaplanes in a small cove on the far side of the island, where they would not be noticed easily. From there, they trekked under the cover of darkness through the jungle. Armed with muskets, Mad Dog, Dumptruck, and Gibber accompanied Karnage, as well as the newest addition, "the boy," as Karnage had come to refer to Kit by.

When they reached the museum, they went around back. As Karnage had expected, the back door was locked, and the windows had all been barred shut for the night. Now was the time to see how useful the boy could be.

Karnage rubbed his chin as he examined the two-story building, giving his plan some final thoughts. His crew was under strict orders of silence, under threat of being chopped up into hamster food. Stealth was the key. If someone heard them, they would be outnumbered and out-gunned in no time, so trying to break the door down was out of the question. Kit took frequent glances in all directions, making sure they weren't being watched. He was not assigned to be a lookout, but he couldn't help it; he was nervous… _very_ nervous. No picked pocket or swiped store merchandise ever quite prepared him for the task he was presently engaged.

"H'okay," the captain whispered, and turned towards Kit. "Boy, come here." But Kit was transfixed in keeping watch to hear him. "_Boy_!" Karnage hissed sharply, making him jump. "Get over here!"

Kit scurried over to him, his heart pounding.

Karnage knelt in front of him so he would not have to speak loudly. "Pay attention, my boy, because this is not play-time, understand?" Kit nodded, so vigorously Karnage had to grab his head to get him to stop. "And quit being nervous!"

Then the captain pointed to the top of the building. "Now, listen. You will need to climb up there, and find a venting shaft to get inside, _comprende_?"

Kit nodded again.

"Good. But there must be a guard in there somewhere, so be _quiet_, yes?"

Another nodding frenzy.

"And hold your head still," Karnage ordered. He stood up to reexamine the building. "Then you will make your way back down and open this door from the other side. We will handle it from there." Kit tugged on his coat, and Karnage leaned down close to his ear. "What?"

"There's no ladder or drainpipe," Kit whispered. "How'm I supposed to climb up there?"

"Oh," blinked Karnage, and he searched the area for a solution. Then Kit tugged on his coat again, prompting the captain to scowl at him. "What is it now?"

"Do I get a gun?" Kit asked hopefully.

"For the last time, _no. _Besides, you will need your hands free."

"What if I need one?"

"Here…" Karnage took a dagger he had sheathed in his cummerbund. "If you need a weapon, you will use this, just like I have been showing you."

"All right… but if I need my hands free…?"

"Show me your teeth," Karnage told him.

"Huh?"

Karnage bared his teeth as an example. "Like this."

Confused, Kit complied, and gritted his own teeth as wide as he could.

Karnage opened Kit's mouth and clamped the blade of the knife in his jaws. "There. Just remember… _don't_ sneeze."

"Wight," Kit replied. Brandishing the knife like that, he imagined himself as a fearsome buccaneer. '_Yeah! Kit Cloudkicker, Terror of Land, Air, and Sea… Pillager of Plunder… Conqueror of Continents… Marauder of-'_

"Boy!" Karnage said sharply. "Snap out of it."

As the Captain resumed his search, Kit took the knife out of his mouth and practiced some of the moves he had learned. It was fun, and it helped calm his anxiety. With bravado, he tossed the dagger from hand to hand, thrust it at an imaginary opponent, and swung it widely as he pivoted… until he suddenly poked something.

"_Yipe_!" Karnage yelped and jumped, rubbing the seat of his pants, where there was now a small slice in the fabric. He glowered over Kit.

"Uh, sorry." Kit shrank back, grinning nervously. "I suppose you want your knife back now?"

Karnage swiped it out of his hand. "Give me that, you knicker-nicking nitwit!"

Mad Dog, Dumptruck, and Gibber did a poor job of suppressing their giggles, until their boss gave them all a hard stare. They promptly assumed solemn expressions again.

Karnage let out an exasperated sigh and went back to searching for a way to get Kit up to the roof. A trash can… too short. Some old boxes… not enough to reach. The three dumbstruck goons standing behind him… Karnage grinned. "Perfect." And thus a moment later:

"Duh, get your foot off my nose," Dumptruck complained to Gibber. It was an amazing sight, if anyone had been around to see it… a make-shift ladder made of a stack of pirates, with Dumptruck at the base, Gibber standing on his shoulders, Mad Dog standing on Gibber's shoulders, and Kit balancing on Mad Dog, reaching for the building's top ledge.

With his hands on his hips, Karnage tapped his foot impatiently as he watched them.

"Steady, guys," said Kit. "I almost got it…"

"Dis stinks," Dumptruck pouted.

"Quit tickling my foot!" Maddog called down.

"How many times must I tell you _not to make noise_!"Karnage shouted, almost causing them to collapse.

"Sor-ry," they moaned in unison.

Kit sprang off Mad Dog's shoulders and pulled himself on top of the roof. Below him he heard a large thud, and a lot of grumbling. He began to search for a way inside right away. Once he found one, he peered down over the edge to report it to the captain. "Looks like a fire hatch or something," he whispered loudly.

Karnage looked up at him. "Can you fit?"

"Yeah, no problem."

Karnage gave him a curt nod. "Hurry, boy. And remember the guards!"

"Right, guards." Kit ducked back to start his infiltration, but reappeared once more. "_Psst_."

Karnage looked up again, annoyed. "_Now_ what?"

"You sure you won't give me a gun?"

"I am going to give you a _kick in the caboose_ if you do not open this door in two minutos!"

"Uh, gotcha. Be right down."

He lifted the unlatched trapdoor, slowly so the hinges would not squeak. Inside, a ladder descended into a dark room. Kit dropped down, landing feet first into a pail and toppling over, causing a loud crash.

The others heard it from outside and cringed.

"He's gonna mess it all up, boss," Mad Dog mewled.

Karnage didn't reply, but folded his arms and glared at the door. It was a silent warning that one more word and someone was going to be smacked.

Meanwhile, Kit stumbled around, and finally found a light switch. He was in a maintenance closet, full of brooms, buckets, tools, and cobwebs.

The first thing he did was put his ear to the door, and made sure no one was coming-all was silent. Then he turned the light off and poked his head out into the hall. _'Nobody home,' _he thought, and began to gain confidence in his mission._ 'I can handle this, easy!'_

As he tiptoed down the hall, he looked inside the various display rooms. Most were full of seashells and handcrafted goods, and inside one, he saw the treasure exhibit they had come for. It was presented on a stage, where the curators made an artificial beach scene out of it… the open treasure chest nestled in sand, with gold coins and trinkets inside and surrounding it. Two palm trees stretched above it all, and a purple velvet rope tied to posts surrounded the display, to keep tourists at a distance.

_'Wow, a real-life pirate treasure_,' Kit thought. Then with a smirk: '_Soon to be reclaimed_.' He had to admit, the captain had good taste in what he stole. '_I better get downstairs and let 'em in…'_

When he reached the head of the stairs, Kit heard noises from down below, and stopped dead in his tracks to listen. There was music playing, a bit staticky like it was coming from a radio. He listened more carefully, and honed in on a more distinct sound: snoring.

On his hands and knees, he crept down a few steps, and saw, next to the museum's main entrance, a night watchman behind a small table, sound asleep in his chair. A radio on his table was tuned into a light swing-music station.

Kit had an idea, and dashed back to the maintenance closet to find some duct tape.

Five minutes later, Karnage was pacing in circles. "He bumbled it, I know it," he muttered to himself. "What was I thinking? Sending a _child_ to do a _pirate's_ job?"

Just then, the door's lock rattled, and Kit opened it from the other side. "Well well, what a pleasant surprise." Grinning cockily, he bowed and made a dramatic gesture for them to enter. "Please, do come in, won't you? We serve cocktails in ten minutes."

"Boy!" Karnage breathed. "What took so long?"

"Sorry, had to take care of the watchman." Kit jerked his thumb behind him, where they saw the guard gagged and tied to his chair in a swaddle of tape. By the time he had waken up, it was too late for him… he could not yelp or move.

Karnage rubbed his eyes to make sure he was not seeing an illusion. He was only expecting the boy to evade the watchman, not restrain him single-handedly.

"The treasure's upstairs, third door to the left." Kit leaned against the doorway, proudly grinning from ear to ear. "So, pretty good, huh?" He expected a shower of praise, yet…

"_Next_ time, when I say two minutos, I _mean_ two minutos," Karnage said sternly, and brushed past him. Miffed, Kit stuck his tongue out at him behind his back.

"You three come with me," Karnage called back to the others.

"What do I do now?" Kit asked.

"_You_ stay here," Karnage ordered. "Keep a lookout."

Kit scoffed. "If you don't want me in the way, just _say_ so."

"I don't want you in the way," answered Karnage, and led his small entourage inside.

"_I dunt want you in de way_," Kit mimicked under his breath. He partly understood, though. The captain had already tripped over him twice, and that was when there was plenty of light to see.

Karnage and company got right to work, gathering all the golden valuables from the display and packing them into the chest. All except for Karnage, of course… _someone_ had to oversee the labor.

"Hurry, men," he coached them. "Leave nothing behind." Then he looked over the velvet rope, somewhat disappointedly. "Tsk… defloorable. How do they expect to give a proficient pirate such as myself a challenge? Cracking safes with dynamite, now that is where the fun is at, yes-no?"

The pirates had finished loading the chest and where just about to close it when one of the palm trees started to creak.

Karnage was baffled. "Trees do not make noise… _do_ they? _Yiiee_!" Suddenly, the tree fell, and he ducked; it had narrowly missed his head. When he opened his eyes again, he saw Kit standing where the tree had been... he had pushed it down! Karnage was beside himself. "What-_boy!_ I told you to stay downstairs! What do you think you are doing?"

"Better look behind you," was all Kit said.

Karnage did, and started in surprise at what he saw… next to the fallen tree, a second watchman lay sprawled on the floor, unconscious. Near his hands were a wooden baton, apparently dropped on impact. Karnage rubbed the back of his head just thinking about it. "He… he was going to…"

"Give your noggin a floggin'," Kit said. "Good thing I saw him in time."

"You _saved _m-I, uh," sputtered Karnage, "that is... ehm... _what _are you all looking at?" he barked to his crew. "Get the chest and carry it out of here, _pronto_! And _you_, boy, I thought I gave you an order."

"It was cold down there," Kit shrugged. "I didn't wanna wait."

Karnage scowled at him and pointed at the doorway. "Move it!"

"All right, all right," Kit said crossly, and he departed.

Mad Dog and Dumptruck hoisted the chest, each taking an end, and Gibber a side. Karnage followed Kit out, but turned back towards his men before exiting. "I knew he was there, too, you know," he said, motioning toward the watchman. "I was just waiting for the right moment… is lucky for _him_ the boy got him before I did."

They gave him blank stares.

Karnage drew his cutlass. "You _believe_ your captain… ye-es?"

"Duh, yah, boss!" agreed Dumptruck, swiftly.

"Uh, you said it!" chimed Mad Dog.

Karnage was satisfied. "Good! Now let us make like a tree and get out of here!"

Karnage sheathed his cutlass and proudly strutted out to the hall. Suddenly there was a crashing sound… then Karnage's voice resounded through the building: "Boy, if I trip over you _one more time_…!"

_

* * *

_

"Yeah," Kit answered quietly, slowly facing Karnage again. "I remember."

"Tell me you did not enjoy it," said Karnage.

"What's the point? It doesn't matter anymore."

"No… it does not. But did you not even say yourself how you liked to plunder from the snobby rich peoples?"

Karnage had him there. "That was _then_, okay? I was just a dumb kid." Before Karnage could open his mouth with an insult to that remark, Kit interrupted him: "If being a pirate really meant anything to me, I'd still _be_ one."

"And just what is _that_ supposing to mean?"

This time Kit didn't just look away from him, but scooted his entire body to face the mouth of the cave. "You're the genius. Figure it out."

"'If it really _meant_ anything to me,'" Karnage mocked. "I tell you what _your_ problemo is, boy. _You_ were always too selfish!"

Kit purposely did not react at first, as if he had to debate whether or not he was hearing things. Then he tilted his head and patted his ear like an obstinate bottle of ketchup. "Must be mud in my ears. I _know_ you didn't just say what that sounded like."

"That you are a selfish simpleton?"

"Come to think of it, it is normal for you to sound stupid, so I guess it's not my ears that are messed up. It's _you_."

Karnage looked more bored than insulted. "And you know what _my_ problemo was?"

"Gimme a few days and I'll write up a list."

"I was too _easy_ on you!"

"_Easy_?"

"Yes, _easy_! I gave you a mile, you took an inch!" Karnage paused and thought for a moment, wondering if he said that correctly.

"I get it now. You're sore because I didn't follow every little order you gave like everyone else. Well you know what? That's just too bad."

Karnage pointed at him angrily. "_Wrong_, boy, I am _sore_ because I… I…!"

"Because _what_?"

"No, I am _not_ 'sore,'" said Karnage. "But answer me _this_. Did I not treat you _better_ than anyone else on my ship?"

Kit was partly taken aback by the question, especially given from whom it was coming. He could not truthfully deny it, but he would not admit it, either.

"And what good did it do for me?" the wolf continued, not waiting for an answer. "Nothing!"

Kit took a moment to contemplate a response. This was the first time Karnage had ever seemed to indicate anger about him leaving the pirates, and on Kit's part there was some level of vindication felt, for there were feelings that he had learned to leg go of since he ran away from the pirates, the wanting he once felt to be significant in the captain's eyes, but it was as if such thoughts were not forgotten but left to thirst in a desert drought, and Karnage had just tempted their tongue with a drop of cool water.

It would have been too awkward to ask him directly, and all reason he had nagging in his mind told him it was best to leave the matter alone, but if Karnage had missed him at all, he suddenly desired to know.

Karnage, meanwhile, felt a sudden sharp pain shoot through his head. He groaned and rubbed his eyes, then mumbled something incoherently about catching the 'blue-bonnet plague.'

Another flash of lightning made something glisten out of the corner of Kit's eye… his compass. He sighed quietly and picked it up, wiping its lens clean on his leg. It was not a valuable piece, made only of tin and crystal, but, save his airfoil, it was his most familiar possession, and, for a time, his most cherished.

* * *

He had received the compass from Don Karnage one autumn day. That day, a dark gray veil blotted the Iron Vulture's windows as the airship ascended through and over heavy, weeping clouds. Kit stood just in front of the helm, gazing through the ship's gigantic eye-shaped windshield as if he was watching something in the far horizon, but there was only the opaque gray wall of the storm to be seen.

Close behind, Jock was steering the helm, though he was leaning up against the wheel and snoring ever so quietly, if that still counted as steering. Karnage was sitting in his captain's chair, writing in his diary-attempting to write, anyway. Every few words he wrote, he would have to stop and shake his pen, as the ink would not flow. "Estupid thing," he muttered. Then, somewhat absently as he flipped through previous pages of his diary, he ordered, "Boy, go get me another pen, will you."

Almost a minute had past before he looked up and realized Kit was still standing there, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. Karange cleared his throat. "Bo-oy..." When Kit still didn't pay attention, he soon got miffed. "_Boy_!"

Jock snorted and suddenly stood up straight.

Kit finally turned around, looking at him like he had just come out of a trance. "Huh...?"

"Pen! Pronto!" Karnage demanded. As for the old pen, he threw that at Jock. "And _you _stay awake at the wheel!"

"Aye," Jock groaned.

As Kit walked past his chair to get his pen, Karnage asked, "What are you thinking about, anyway?"

"Me? What makes you think I've been thinking?"

"I thought perhaps you were trying something new," Karnage replied.

Kit stuck his tongue out at him. "Thpp!" He bolted out the room to get the pen when Karnage looked like he was about to get up after him.

For the most part, it had been an unintentional day of rest for the pirates, as most of the crew was suffering from a dire collective hangover, acquired from a heavy night of celebration. It was Don Karnage's birthday celebration, and it featured rum cake. Extra heavy on the rum.

Karange slumped back against the left arm, slowly nodding off. As several minutes passed, he had all but forgotten about the errand he sent Kit on, and apparently, so did Kit.

After a stretch and yawn, the sound of his diary falling on the floor snapped him back to his senses. He reached in his coat for his pocket watch to see what time it was, and realized not only had Kit taken far too long to do one simple task, but he had by now forgotten the exact wonderful phrases he was planning to write in his diary... neither fact was very pleasing.

Karnage went to his quarters and saw the boy sitting at his desk, absently fidgeting with a shiny brass fountain pen. "Don't you have planes to wash?"

Startled, Kit suddenly had most of the pen's ink squirted on his sleeve. "Oh... did you still want this?"

The captain dropped his diary down hard on the desk to make a point. "Forget to screw your head on today?"

"Aw, c'mon, so I forgot your pen. After last night, it's a slow day for everyone."

"It is not only the pen. And, I warned you to stay away from the cake!"

"I didn't touch the cake," Kit cringed. "It smelled like iodine. _No way _I was gonna taste it."

"Then what is the problem poking at your miniature mind? You have been fumbling and forgetting things all week!"

Kit hung his head, embarrassed. "I have not."

Knuckles on the desk, Karnage hunched over him with a piercing glare that might as well have been a hot, interrogating spotlight in Kit's face.

"You wouldn't like it if I tried to tell you," Kit said.

"I knew it, one of _those _things," groaned the captain. With a jerk of his thumb, Karnage told Kit to 'move it or lose it' out of his chair, and took his seat. "Out with it, then, what did you do now?"

"I didn't do anything! You'd think I'm feeling sorry for myself."

"Ah!" Karange smiled with a heap of sarcasm. "Well if it is one of _those _things... then yes, you are! So stop it! Go do your chores."

With a huff, Kit swung around and began leave. Karange rolled his eyes, took a breath, called after Kit just before he went out the door. "Come back, boy."

"No thanks," Kit sneered.

"I won't tell you again."

With that, Kit stopped and obeyed, although he walked with heavy stomps out of protest. "What?"

"Go ahead. Tell me."

"No, you're right. It's silly."

"Then tell me something silly."

Kit regarded the captain wearily of being made fun of, but he was sitting back in his chair with his hands folded over his lap with some semblance of patience.

"Well, I guess I've been thinking about birthdays," said Kit, "and how I've never been to a party before. I don't even know when my real birthday is."

"Real birthday?"

"I found out once that I was going by the day I got dumped at the orphanage... whoever left me there didn't tell them anything. No name, no birthday, no nothing. I don't know why; they weren't allowed to tell me anything about it, or even who it was."

"H'okay, and...?"

"It's lousy. I can't stop thinking about it. I wish I could just blink and it would all go away."

"So what is the big deal?" asked Karnage. "Birthdays are another day, you know."

"Yeah, know. One more year closer to walking canes and shuffleboard tournaments, huh?"

Karnage shot him a sudden angry look. "_Who _is?"

"Aw, I was only kidding. I'm not really into making big deals out of 'em, either."

"Good."

"Spent my last one taking cover from the rain under a bridge, some fun that was." He shuddered inwardly just thinking about it. "But that's just it... it's not just the birthday thing, but... everything. Why didn't my parents want me. Why everyone else got to have a home, and it was me who had to sleep under bridges."

Kit felt his cheeks warm, and he could not look Karnage in the eye. Right then he wished he would have lied and told him he was just feeling ill, for pirates were supposed to be a great deal tougher than sadness. His voice faltered, though he puffed up his chest for show, "N-never mind, I told you, it's silly. I'm okay."

Karnage leaned forward on his knees and gestured for Kit to come closer. "You want me to tell you how to make that all go away?" He snapped his fingers, gesturing that his solution was instantaneous.

"How?"

Karnage waited until Kit was right in front of him before he spoke: "Who cares!"

Kit flinched, his feelings more than a little hurt. "Huh?"

"No, listen and think about it. _Who cares_ why! Who cares _who_. Perhaps they died bloody deaths, or perhaps they just could not wait to get rid of you. They could have been rich, they could have been poor, so what! If you knew everything about them, what difference would it make?"

"Nothing, I guess," said Kit.

"And nothing will ever change what happened, yes?"

"I know."

"Then _forget _about them!"

"I know, but..." Kit tugged at his collar; he felt like squirming away, but also he had never come so close to getting the matter off his chest, and he pressed on, "No offense, but maybe it's easy for you to say."

"No, boy, it is just _easy_," said Karnage. "There are better things than parents and being tucked into bed with warm pajamas. Why worry about where you _were_? Look where you _are_!" Karnage reached far back from his chair towards one of the windows, and wisked away the drapes. The sudden onslaught of light made them both blink. Above the rainstorm, the high afternoon sun cast down upon endless waves of soft, white clouds, illuminating them with such a brilliant aura that if one didn't know better, the Iron Vulture could have been passing over Heaven itself. "Above the clouds, above the rain, above the world. Where you always wanted to be, yes-no?"

"More than anything," Kit whispered.

Slightly Karnage nodded, knowingly. "That is all that matters. Yesterday and the days before mean nothing." He straightened the red scarf around Kit's collar, and finished by giving the boy a tap on the cheek with the back of his fingers. "_And _you have the profound pleasure of having _me _in charge. What could ever be better?"

Kit finally cracked a smile, then chuckled. His posture changed, with his shoulders and head higher than the moment before, though he still felt too sheepish to utter word of thanks; he pretended to study a map spread on top of Karnage's desk, and cleared his throat. "So where we going next, Captain?"

"Anywhere we want," replied Karnage, stretching back in his seat with his hands folded behind his ears. "You _are _practicing your navelgazing as I told you, yes?"

"You mean navigating? Of course," grinned Kit. "I can draw routes in my sleep."

Karnage opened one of his desk drawers and routed around in it. "Here, I have something for you," he said, picking up a compass. It was unblemished and looked new. "If you want to please _me_, my boy, I expect nothing but the best. If you ever want to be a pilot one day who can tell his flaps from a hole in the ground, keep it with you."

"No kidding?" Kit accepted it with both hands. "I can keep it?"

Karnage shrugged. "It's yours."

"Thanks… I don't know what to say."

"Yes, yes, I know. I am wonderful."

Kit admired the compass for a moment, but suddenly felt ashamed. "But when I mentioned birthdays, I didn't mean... you didn't have to-"

"Don't make me stick it in your ear, boy," Karnage interrupted. "I am not doing _anything_."

"Oh, right." Kit said. "Just for doing my job, right?"

"And why don't you go _do _it?" asked Karnage.

Kit took the hint and left for the hangar immediately. Half way there, he stopped to look at his new compass, dipping it to and fro in his hand until it pointed North, and he saw his own reflection in its crystal face. There was a smile there he could not make go away if he tried.

* * *

Kit set the compass down on the dusty cave floor; the reflection he saw in its crystal was a countenance far removed from the one he saw when it was first given to him. "Sometimes, you were okay," he said quietly. "_Sometimes_."

"_Okay_? You know, you were not always as estupid as you are now. You used to know I was marvelous!"

Kit snorted, noticing that Karnage did not say 'think' or 'believe,' but '_know'_. "I didn't say marvelous. I said _okay_."

Karnage folded his arms and huffily looked away. "So you say now."

"By the way, Your Smugness, I was just thinking about the time you told me that birthdays were no big deal… that they were just another day."

Karnage allowed himself to glance at him again, and at the compass lying at his side. "And?"

"_And_… I never got the chance to tell you you're a hypocrite."

A perplexed eyebrow raised on Karnage's forehead. "Now not even your insolent insults are making sense. I am a _wolf_!"

Kit rubbed his hand down his face. "I said _hypocrite_. That means you say one thing and mean the other."

Karnage was still puzzled. "The other what?"

"_Thing_."

"_What_ thing?"

"Whatever _thing_ you don't mean!"

Karnage pondered him for a moment. "Are you feeling sick, too?"

"_No._ What I'm trying to say is that you told me that they were no big deal, but when _your_ birthday came around, you were singing a different tune: 'happy birthday to me.'"

Karnage shrugged. "So? _Someone's_ birthday must be celebrated… why not mine? Besides, it is not everyday a special person such as myself turns twenty-nine."

"And that's another thing… that crock about you being twenty-nine. You're thirty-thr-"

"I am _twenty nine_!" Karnage insisted. "And who told you?"

"No one had to. I just asked Gibber one day how many times you've thrown yourself a twenty-ninth birthday party."

"That loud-mouth," Karnage grumbled.

"Well, _that's_ what a hypocrite is. You."

Karnage wrinkled his nose in confusion. "Someone who has a birthday?"

Kit sighed, frustrated. "Never mind. Bet you threw yourself a big birthday bash this year, too."

"Who _would not_ want to celebrate such a glorious occasion? _You_, perhaps, but that is your problemo."

"Glorious? I was _at _the party with the guys when it came around back then…" Then he smirked. "Remember when Mad Dog got sloshed and sang 'My Buddy' to you?"

Karnage cringed at the memory… his head ached worse just thinking about it. "That was _not_ funny."

"Yeah, it was," Kit laughed. "It was one present you deserved. Oh! And let's not forget about Christmas, when you drank that eggnog all by yourself… the stuff you didn't know _Dumptruck_ made!"

"Oh no…" Karnage's eyes turned red and watery, and he clenched his stomach; despite his fur, his cheeks looked green and bloated. "Do not say one word about that!"

"What was _in_ that stuff, anyway?"

"Boy, I'm warning you!"

"I mean, eggnog's not supposed to _bubble_, is it?"

Karnage went a little cross-eyed.

"You were in the bathroom for _five_ _hours_!" laughed Kit.

Karnage shot to his feet, hunched over. "Curse it all, boy, I _told_ you to shut up!" He snatched up his coat and threw it around his shoulders, then ran out of the cave and out of sight with his tail wrapped between his legs.

Kit blinked. "Huh… I guess he really _is_ sick."


	7. The storm, continued

**Chapter 7**

**The storm, continued**

Don Karnage returned several minutes later, coughing and shivering. With his fur matted down to his skin in strands and clumps, he looked more like a drowned rat than an infamous pirate. He dropped his drenched coat to the floor and plopped down face-first in front of the campfire. "This… _**stinks! **_I _hate_ this place! I hate it I hate it I hate it!"

"That eggnog must've been more potent than I thought," Kit said. "You had it over a year ago and it _still_ gives you-"

"Will you _shut up_ about it already?" Karnage sat up and vigorously rubbed his arms, inching closer to the fire. "That was another miserable Christmas I wish to never hear about."

"You never were much for holiday spirit, were you?"

"Of course I am! It's always a ripe time for plunder, you know."

"Yeah, I know. But I mean about normal stuff. You know, presents and Christmas trees... and carols an' stuff."

"What, you don't remember the Christmas tree?" asked Karnage.

"You call that a tree? I remember a green lampshade with an ammo belt strapped around it for decoration."

Karnage would have shrugged if he had enough cared to waste the energy. "I slouch corrected."

"I bet you never realized that I got you a Christmas gift."

"Yes, I do! _You_ were the one who brought me the eggnog!"

"Yeah, but _before_ that…"

* * *

Kit was speaking of the one and only Noel he spent as a pirate, where the halls of the Iron Vulture might not have been decked with boughs of holly, but the pirates were in a jolly mood the night of Christmas Eve. Two exceptionally large cargo planes, carrying all sorts of goods, had just been captured. And to think, the pilots' worst complaint before was having to work that night.

Nearly everyone, including Don Karnage, was in the hangar, sorting through the plunder. Kit felt this was the perfect time…

The excited chatter of the pirates carried though the corridors as Kit stole through the berth deck. He passed by the captain's room and noticed he had not even in there decorated for the holiday, save for a small mistletoe hung above his full-length mirror; Kit moved along and figured it would probably be better if Karnage did not know he noticed that.

He went to the end of the hall, got on his knees, and opened a vent shaft that he used as a hiding place. Tucked away from inside, he took out a small box, a gift. He had to improvise, though. He had no shiny wrapping paper, so he used old newspaper and wrapped it around a tiny cardboard box. He also had no ribbon to tie it with, so he used old shoelaces he found lying around. But it was what hid inside that counted, and he couldn't wait to see the captain's face when he opened it.

Kit blew the dust off of the box; it had been sitting in there for some time now. Two weeks prior, he and a small group of other pirates were sent by Karnage to the town of Booklyn to see about a kidnaping of a certain rich dignitary (which, long story short, ended in utter failure). Kit, however, became separated from the rest, and while he was searching for them he wandered through the downtown district, ducked into a pawn shop just for curiosity's sake, and that's when he saw it... a golden men's luxury wristwatch, sparking inside a glass case. There were other pieces of jewelry inside the display as well, rings, bracelets, brooches, but none caught Kit's eye like the watch, though he wondered if it was a cheap replica.

A shifty looking weasel in a polyester suit, who was leaning behind the counter, noticed Kit eyeing his display. "Hey kid, get your nose away from my glass, will ya? You're foggin' it up."

"Uh, sorry." Kit took a step back. "Can I see the watch?"

"You wish."

"Well… how much is it?"

The weasel snickered. "Like you can afford it, huh?"

"I might." Kit buffed his nails on his sweater, looking uninterested. "Daddy just gave me my allowance for the week… _finally_."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, it's been real hectic lately," Kit explained. "See, we just struck oil… _again_, and that means busy, busy, busy. They're piling money in our bank account faster than we can count it! You know how _that_ goes. And Mummy was complaining because we haven't gone to Purree yet… we go every month, you know, but we just haven't had time lately."

The weasel blinked. The fish had nibbled on the bait.

"But it's all better now," said Kit. "We'll be in Purree by tomorrow. But today, Daddy wants Mummy and I to go out and buy _whatever_ we want while we're here…" Kit looked at the watch again, this time contemptuously. "You know, on second thought, I think I already have that one. Silly me. Oh well, ta-ta!"

As Kit turned around, the weasel quickly zipped in front of him. "Now wait a minute, junior, we uh, we wouldn't want to disappoint dear ol' dad now, would we? If you really want the watch, I'm sure we can work something out… uh, couldn't we?"

Kit folded his hands behind his back. "But, gee, mister, I sure wouldn't want to buy it if I already have it."

"Oh, kid, _trust_ me, this watch is one of a kind!" the weasel exclaimed. He stepped back behind the display case and opened it, taking the watch out.

_'What a pushover,'_ Kit thought. He noticed then the weasel had a watch of his own around his wrist, one that was gold and diamond studded and, as far as Kit could discern, looked entirely genuine; it was then that he knew exactly what he intended to go back to the Iron Vulure with. "Really? One of a kind?" Kit held out his hand expectantly, and was already mentally planning a quick swipe of the schnook's wrist and his escape route.

"Oh yes!" said the weasel. "Take a closer look at it. Notice the-" He was just about to let Kit hold it when he noticed the boy's sleeve, and the yellow patch on it. "Hey, wait a minute." He grabbed Kit's wrist, stretching the material for a better look. "What is this, some sorta gag?"

Kit wrenched his arm free. "Uh, oh, you mean the sweater? Yeah, it's kinda old. I've had it since I was little, see, and I-"

"Save it, kid," the weasel interrupted, and returned the watch to its place in the display. "Now get lost before I holler for a cop!"

"Yeah, go ahead and _get_ a cop," Kit retorted. "Maybe you could tell 'im who you ripped all this junk off of!"

"Scram!"

Kit tromped off, but a _real_ pirate wouldn't give up that easily.

He looked around, searching for an idea. On the street corner, a police officer stood, jovially keeping watch over the crowd._ 'Hmm… this guy's got possibilities,'_ thought Kit. He approached the officer as timidly as he could feign. "Uh, excuse me, Mr. Policeman?"

The otter in blue smiled at the cub. "Well hello there, lad. Lost?"

Kit shook his head, rather dramatically. "No sir. I live close by."

The officer rubbed his chin. "You look a bit startled, you do. You all right?"

"Well, yes sir, I guess so. But you see…" Kit gestured behind him. "You know that guy who works at the pawn shop?"

The cop narrowed his eyes at the shop, with a knowing sneer. "Yeah, that I do. He give you trouble?"

"Well…" Kit bashfully studied his feet. "I don't really wanna _bother_ you or anything…"

"Not at all, lad," the officer said. "What did he do?"

"I'm not really sure he did _anything_, see? It could be nothing… but…"

"But what?"

"Well, I was walking past him, and he started giving me a really weird look," Kit explained.

"Weird look?"

"Yeah, and whispering stuff. I couldn't tell what exactly, but it made me feel kinda uncomfortable… and scared. And Mommy says when something like that happens, I should tell someone safe, like a teacher or a police officer."

"Well it takes a lad with a good head on his shoulders to listen to his mother," the otter said. He started walking toward the pawn shop. "Maybe I just better have a word with this person."

Kit grabbed his arm. "W-wait! Don't do that!"

"Huh? And why not?"

"Because, I told you, I'm not really sure… I don't wanna get an innocent guy in trouble, sir."

The officer looked at him questioningly. "What _would_ you like done, then?"

Kit shrugged. "Maybe… just keep an eye on him?"

"All right then," he replied. "That I'll do."

Kit smiled sheepishly. "Thanks, sir. I feel real safe knowing you're watching out for people here."

"Do you now?" Brightened, he patted Kit on the head. "Well, you can count on me, lad."

_'What a tool,' _Kit thought, but said, "Yeah. I better be going now. Thanks again!" Considering his friendliness, Kit actually liked the fellow, but well suspected that if the officer knew he was an orphaned air pirate, he would have acted differently… _much_ differently.

Kit cut through the sidewalk crowd and headed back towards the weasel's shop. But knowing he had an audience of one looking on, he did not turn his head to look directly in side, but instead started searching the ground in front of the store as if he had lost something; he kept his head turned in such a way that the officer could not see him stare at the weasel, or talk to him. "Nice outfit, toothpick," said Kit. "Your mother dress you?"

The weasel looked at him, surprised. "You again? You talkin' to me?"

Kit acted like he was casually scratching the back of his neck. "Yeah, I'm talking to _you_, stupid. What are you gonna do about it?"

Fuming, the weasel stepped from the counter and toward the store's entrance. "Kid, you outta your mind or something? Get lost before I tear ya ta pieces!"

"Ooh, I'm shaking," Kit taunted. '_That's right, buddy, come closer,' _he thought. "I bet a wimp like you couldn't tear a piece of paper."

"That does it, kid, I'm gonna kick your-hey!"

Before he could be grabbed, Kit ducked and ran behind the jewelry case, screaming, "Help! Police!"

Everyone turned too look at the scene, talking at once.

The weasel couldn't believe what was happening. "What're you-kid, are you _crazy_? Shut up!"

Kit slid to a shop in the middle of the shop and motioned for the weasel to follow him. "_Make_ me."

Snarling, the weasel stomped towards the boy. "Wait'll I get my hands on you!"

Kit stood still for a beat, giving the weasel time to draw nearer. The second he was about to lunge at him, Kit leapt on counter and pushed the jewelry case over. The glass shattered on the pavement, scattering the contents.

The weasel was more than stunned, but not for long. He lunged at Kit, but the boy ducked him yet again and ran around the fallen display. "Oh, geez," sighed Kit. "You're really bad at this! Here, I'll hold still to make it fair."

The weasel jumped at that opportunity and nabbed Kit by his collar. "Now I got ya, you little rat!"

"Help, help!" screamed Kit, and he clasped on to the weasels wrist like he was wrestling away from him.

"You better cry for help-ack!" Suddenly, the weasel was roughly grabbed by his own collar by the police officer.

"Hold it right there!" the otter shouted.

"B-but-but officer!" The weasel stammered. "Y-you don't understand!"

"Saw the whole thing, I did," the officer said. "You harassin' this poor lad and makin' this mess! You're comin' with me, you are!"

The onlookers started through the door in contempt at the weasel. "But you got it all wrong!" he protested.

"Quiet you!" The officer warned, and brandished his baton threateningly. "You can tell it to the judge!" Then he looked at Kit. "You all right, lad?"

"I think so… thanks to you, sir." Kit gave him a wan smile. Discreetly, he patted his sleeve, making sure his newly acquired watch was tucked in and well hidden. That _really_ made him smile.

"Well, you best be running along home right away," said the cop, and pushed the weasel along. "This man won't be bothering you anymore, no sir!"

"Oh, I will," Kit replied, backing away. He cast one final smug look at the weasel and pointed at his wrist. "It's about _time_ I got going."

Gasping, the weasel checked his wrist and saw his watch missing. "I'm gonna get you for this, kid!" he shouted as the officer dragged him away. "I'm gonna get you!"

Kit started away, but suddenly felt a sharp pain shoot through his foot. "Ow…" He checked the bottom of his heel, seeing a few spots of blood; he had stepped on a shard of glass._ 'Wounded in action,'_ he thought with a rueful grin.

That day, Wesley Weazel was booked for harassing a minor, disturbing the peace, possession of stolen goods, including the suit he was wearing, and at the station, for groping one of the police secretaries, who just happened to be the chief's niece. The officer received a promotion.

Kit left the captain's quarters with the gift in hand, musing over how it like to spend the holidays as an air pirate. It was different, though he never really knew from experience what was normal. During his stay at the orphanage at this time of year, he sometimes found himself daydreaming of what it would be like to live in a real home, to go downstairs on Christmas morning, open the presents under the tree, and have a big dinner afterwards. Even that very night, those same thoughts passed through his mind. But he shook his could have their normality... he didn't need it to be happy.

In the hangar, Karnage and others gleefully dug through the plunder, which was spread over the floor, while the two cargo planes were being stripped of their parts. Karnage was particularly occupied with a large crate full of various joke and magic novelties. Gibber was at his side, curiously examining a cylindrical object from the box labeled 'Chinese Finger Trap.'

Karnage pondered a black wand he found. "Hmm… I wonder if this could be one of those conducting-type thingies…" He tapped it on the crate, and was shocked to see it suddenly puff out into bouquet of cloth flowers.

As Kit approached the Captain, holding the present behind his back, Gibber brushed by him, miserably struggling to pull his index fingers apart.

Karnage gave the bouquet a sniff and tossed it over his shoulder. "What ignoranimoose came up with _that_ idea… _fake flowers in a stick_?" Then he felt a familiar tug on his coat tail… he did not have to turn around to know who it was. "My boy, cannot you see I am trying to enjoy my new pieces of pillagement?"

"I um, I got something for you," said Kit, holding up the package to him.

But Karnage was too busy digging through the novelties to pay attention. He pulled out a telescope and looked somewhat pleased. "Finally, something I can use." He put it up to his eye and glanced around the hanger.

Kit tugged on his coat again. "Uh, Captain?"

Karnage put the telescope down and looked at him. Kit tried not to grin-there was now a round patch of black ink around his eye. "Boy, if you keep pulling on my coat like that, you are going to stretch all the habbidash out of it!"

A little intimidated now, Kit showed him the gift. "Look."

Karnage scowled at him. "What? You _know_ where the garbage is. _I_ am not going to throw it away for you."

"No, it's for _you_. For Christmas."

Kit held out the frayed package, wanting for him to take it, but Karnage recoiled from it as if he smelled a two-week-old halibut behind that newspaper wrapping. "What is this, your idea of a joke? Don't you know it is too early for April foolishness?"

Kit lowered it, disappointed. "Don't… don't you wanna open it?"

"_Open_ it?" Karnage looked appalled at the very idea. "Put that back in the garbage where you found it. And do not be digging in the trash anymore, or you will start smelling like Mad Dog!"

"But it's not trash… if you'd just-"

"Do what I tell you," the captain ordered, and resumed exploring the crate.

"Fine then," Kit huffed angrily. Karnage wasn't listening. "'Scuse me for _bothering_ you."

Before leaving the hangar, Kit tossed the gift into a pile of broken goods and other useless refuse from the plunder that the pirates would dump later. "I don't even wanna see that stupid watch ever again," he muttered. "And after all I did to get it for him… should've got 'im a pile of dog poop for all the good it did."

He looked back at Karnage, who now was trying to figure out an oversized magician's top hat. He became more sad than angry, seeing that the captain was never going to give a any second thought at all to his would-be Christmas present. He felt brushed off like a piece of lint, and decided to head to the galley for a midnight snack; a full stomach might make him feel better. Plus, he wanted to check out a rumor had of some unholy concoction Dumptruck had put together under the name of 'eggnog,' and, with a wicked grin, wondered if the captain was thirsty.

"_Eek_!" he heard Karnage shriek. "There was a _rabbit_ in this thing! There it goes! No, not in my plane! Somebody _catch it_!"

"Dar, I love der little bunny rabbits," Dumptruck commented among some chaotic crashing noises. "Dere ears are so chewy and-!"

"Will you shut up and catch it!" Karnage barked.

* * *

"_What_? You made that up!" exclaimed Karnage.

"No, I didn't," Kit said. "I'm just sorry I threw the watch away… I could've at least pawned it, maybe."

"Hmph. Sounds like a cheap watch, anyway," said Karnage.

"Expensive enough for you to stick in your ailerons."

Then Karnage smirked. "Even though, it makes sense. You _adored_ me."

"Oh geez, will you stop saying that word? Let's get something straight, okay? I can't_ stand_ you. I don't wanna hear you, and I don't wanna look at you. The only reason we're together is because I had to make a choice between _cooperating_ with you or _dying_ in this stupid jungle- and lemme tell you something, it was a close vote!"

"I cannot understand you! You are mad at me, when _you_ are the one who has always caused the trouble! Ever since you tried to run away from me with that stone! _I_ am the one who has the right to be angry!"

"That's baloney."

"You stole the stone from me because you _knew_ how much I wanted it, is that right?"

Despite himself, Kit was somewhat surprised that Karnage had figured that out. "It started _way_ before all of that happened."

"_Answer_ me. You took it away because it was important to me, did you not?"

"Look, that doesn't-"

"_Did you_?"

"So what if I did? It was a payback you had coming! And you would've _killed_ me for it, too! You threw me off the Iron Vulture, for crying out loud! You wanted me _dead_! You were even laughing about it! Like I'm supposed to _forget that_?"

"You _knew_ I wanted to plunder Cape Suzette more than anything in the world! It was my greatest moment! I even wanted you to be a part of it! But what did you do? You tried to ruin me! What did you _think_ I would do, make you stand in the corner?"

"I didn't know _what_ to think! That's why I'm glad not to be with your stinkin' gang anymore!"

"No no, boy, I _know_ why you did what you did. I figured it all out the very _secondo _you did it!"

"Oh?"

"You were _jealous_ of me!"

If Kit had a drink, it would have been spit out. "_Whuh_?"

"Why else would you have done it? If you wanted to leave, you could have just _left_! You wanted to make me look bad! You were jealous of how great a pirate I am, and that _I_ am numero uno, not you!"

"That's the stupidest-!"

"It is _right_! Both times you tried to steal the stone, you did it because you wanted to prove you were _more clever_ than I! I was easy on you, boy, I _trusted_ you! That was my mistake, because still all you wanted to do was be a _mutinous muttonhead_!" Karnage stopped yelling for a moment to catch his breath, then resumed with a low growl, "What I did to you, I would have done to anyone else."

"_That_ I believe," said Kit. "But I don't know where you came up with all that other stuff."

"Did you not just admit to taking the blasted stone because of what it meant to me?"

"Well, yeah, but that wasn't _all_ why. There was a lot more to it than that."

"Ha!"

"There _was_!"

"Oh _yes_?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay, boy, then you tell me, _why_? Once and for final, tell me! Why did you run away? After all I did for you, what was it that made you_ hate me_?"

Kit was stunned silent that Karnage seriously didn't have a clue. "You… you really don't know… do you?"

"It was not because you were jealous of my wonderful self?"

"No… of course not."

Karnage nodded, calmly. "Well then… if that is the truth… then I have just one thing left to say."

"And that is...?"

"Liar! Tell me the _real_ truth!"

"That _is_ the truth! I wasn't jealous of you."

"Yes you were!"

"No I wasn't!"

"_Yes_ you were!"

"_No_ I wasn't!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"_Yes_!"

"_**No!**_"

Disappointed, Karnage frowned. "No?"

"_No_. Not even close."

"Not even… a teensy-weensy bit?"

"Nuh-uh. I can't believe that's what you actually thought all this time," Kit said. "Then again, coming from you..."

"Are you sure? Not even an itty-bit-"

"I'm _sure_, okay?"

Karnage sighed. "H'okay… then why? What was it that made you want to leave?"

Kit shrugged, words escaping him for a moment; how could he possibly explain how he felt? "I just got sick of it, but it's over with. What's there to say about it?"

"Sick of what?"

"Everything."

"What is 'everything'?"

"You, the guys. Everything. It got boring."

"_Boring_? Being a pirate _boring_?"

"Being an _eleven-year-old_ pirate. I mean, you wouldn't let me fly…"

"Because you were being an _eleven-year-old_ pirate. But did I not do things with you? Take you places? Let you help with the pillaging?"

"Not always, but that's not it. It was _you_, the way you were, especially when you got so worked up about Cape Suzette. No one can trust you, they never know when you're going to turn on them. I wasn't gonna stick around for the next time you felt like hurting someone... there was nothing I wanted more than to get away from you."

***

* * *

The definitive decision to run away from the pirates came just two weeks from the fateful day when Kit actually sprang his plan into action, a plan that purposely left his former captain reeling.

The Iron Vulture was anchored at an uninhabited cove, where the pirates had schemed a morning ambush on passing freighters. That night, Kit stopped just before the bridge and took a deep breath. He had things on his mind, and hoped his captain would be in a listening mood, for it seemed he had been anything but for quite a while.

Karnage was by himself, sitting at a table, tiredly but intently studying a short stack of papers. The bridge was dark, save for a lantern on the table. Cautiously, with light steps, Kit walked in behind him.

"Uh, captain?" he said. Karnage did not acknowledge his presence, even when Kit walked right up to his table. This was nothing new. Lately, it seemed as though Karnage barely even looked at him, let alone spoke to him. He was scheming something for weeks, something big, and was doing a good job in keeping it to himself, though his thoughts were bent on it. Adding to the suspicion, Ratchet's workshop on Pirate Island had just recently been dubbed off-limits to the rest of the crew. Kit did not know what was going on, but had picked up a few words here and there over the week… something about Shere Khan and a 'great treasure'. He planned on doing more snooping into the matter later on, but for the moment, it was not the first thing on his mind.

"Captain?"

Karnage jumped, startled at Kit's sudden appearance. "What?"

"I was just going to tell you that dinner's ready… whenever you are."

"So what." Karnage waved him away and returned to his papers. "I am not hungry."

"Right." Kit tilted his head and tried to see what was so interesting. It looked like a diagram of some huge contraption, like something out of one of those Martian movies. On another piece of paper was a drawing of what looked like a jewel, cut like a jagged figure eight. "What's that?"

"Nothing," Karnage said, annoyed. "Now go."

"You want me to turn another light on?"

"No, it makes my eyes hurt. Just _leave_."

Kit backed away, stood still for a few seconds, then approached the desk again. "Captain?"

Karnage paid no attention. "Fish bowls," he muttered. "Where am I supposed to find fish bowls?"

"Uh, at a pet shop?"

"Ah-ha! At a pet shop! I am such a gen-at a _pet shop_?" Karnage looked up. "Are you still here? Did I not tell you to vamoose?"

"I just want to ask you something."

"Can you not see that I am _busy_?"

"Well… I know, but…"

Karnage rubbed his eyes wearily. He had a piercing headache. "What?" he asked sharply.

Kit was slow in reply; the captain was never easy to talk to while he was grumpy. "I was just wondering if… well, maybe if tomorrow we could…"

Karnage impatiently tapped his claws on his desk. "Sometime _this year_, boy. Speak!"

"Do you think we could take one of the planes out and I could try flying for awhile?"

"_What_?"

"Look, before you say no…"

"No."

Kit stifled for a second, then gathered his nerve. "Then _when_? It's almost been a year!"

"Do not be complaining to me, boy," Karnage said. "I am in no mood."

"I'm not complaining. You _told _me you'd teach me to fly, and I've been waiting forever."

"No. Case is closed!"

"Look, I know the standard flight manual from cover to cover, and I know where everything is on any one of our planes. I've taxied before, and I know I can steer."

"No."

"Why _not_?"

"You are too young, and I do not have the time anyway. Now _shoo_, you annoying little fly."

"That figures," sighed Kit.

"What?"

"I said that _figures_," Kit said, much louder.

"Do not be giving _me_ the snotty tone, brat."

"But you _never_ have time! We used to do things, but now I can stand right next to you and you don't know I'm here!"

"I have more important matters to see to than _you_," said Karnage. "And _I_ am not here to take care of you!"

"I don't want you to take _care_ of me, but I'm tired of this. I just wanna do something besides _nothing_."

"Perhaps that is all you are good for!"

Stung into a momentary silence, Kit suddenly blurted, "Maybe I learned from the best."

Karnage cupped his head between his hands for a few seconds in a futile attempt to quell the throbbing pain. "I suggest… you make yourself scarce," he growled. "Now."

"I _have_ been scarce, not that _you'd_ notice. I could run away and you'd never even know I was gone!"

"I will tell you one more time," warned Karnage, fed up. "Shut up and go!"

But instead, Kit obstinately crossed his arms. "What if I don't?"

Only too late did Kit realize he should have kept that last challenge to himself. He could practically see it in Karnage's eyes, how his temper had snapped like a dry twig. Karnage furiously stormed out of his chair, making Kit backpedal so fast that he tripped over his own feet. Needless to say, he finally shut up.

Karnage yanked him up and held him by the hair to make sure he was looking at him dead in the eye. With finger in the boy's face, he snarled, "If you are not happy, wretch, I could see that you find your way to a workhouse, or _worse_. When I give you an order, you will obey!"

Kit struggled in vain to free himself from his grasp… but as he locked eyes with Karnage, feeling his breath against his face, defiant anger surged inside him. "_Make_ me!"

Karnage raised his other hand, and in a burst of rage, swung a fast and powerful swat to Kit's face, sending the boy spiraling to the floor. Instantly Karnage recoiled, for a beat taken aback by his own actions; the sting on his hand was severe, let alone what the boy must have felt; he had hit him fiercely, with vindictive and angry strength. He glanced at his hand with a deep frown, fervently displeased with what he had done, and utterly unapologetic, for he thought the boy had already defied him too many times, and it was time the law was laid down once and for all.

Kit was silent and motionless, hunched into a ball and hiding his face.

"I will never warn you again," said Karnage. As long as you are on _my_ ship, you will _always_ do as I say… or _else_."

At that, Kit bolted from the bridge, and ran fast out of the captain's sight. Karnage turned back to the table, and from then, felt that the boy had learned his lesson, and in the midst of greater plans, he very soon forgot about the incident.

That night, Kit never joined the others for dinner, and from then on he was scarcely seen among the crew at all. He went straight to bed, with a damp towel for his cheek; he nearly wept, but even if no one were there to witness it, he was adamant not to give Karnage that satisfaction. All the trust he ever stocked in Karnage was stripped, replaced by spite, even greater than sadness. He wanted to hurt Karnage back, to get away from him as far as possible, and never see him again. There was nothing left for him there.

* * *

Karnage groaned, remembering that night. And the headache he had now was an unpleasant reminder of how he felt then. "Of all the-you ran away because I smacked you once? I smack everybody! Is nothing."

"It was to me. I had to get away. I was gonna sell the stone and use the money to start over… maybe buy my own plane soon. But it wasn't because I got greedy… and it sure wasn't because I _wanted_ to be on my own again."

"_Then_?"

"I didn't want to _end up_ like you."

"What are you meaning, 'end up'?"

"Self-obsessed, pig-headed, all alone… take your pick."

"What? _I_ am not alone. Or any of that other nincompoopery."

"Oh no? Name one person you know that actually cares about you. Anyone."

"Do not be absurd. We have been though this! I have more admirers than Hacksaw has fleas!"

"Come on, take a hint about yourself. You don't have _any_ friends… do you?"

Karnage shrugged. "So? Who cares? I do not w-_need _friends. I am not a child anymore… I am a pirate."

"What, you think that's all there is to life?"

"It might as well be," Karnage said grimly.

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing. But if _you_ want to live in a world of make-believing, where everyone is so caring and friendly and prancing around together like piddlely-type puppets, _I_ do not care. In the _real_ world, _some _of us have important things to consider."

"Yeah, well, that's another thing. Who wants to be around someone who thinks like you?"

"And what is _wrong_ with the way I think?"

"Try _everything_. You think everyone owes you something."

"No, I just take it anyway," Karnage said matter-of-factly.

"I don't mean stealing stuff… you think the whole stinkin' world should revolve around you."

The pirate rubbed his eyes and temples, wishing for an aspirin or twelve. "And that is such a terrible thing," he groaned. "The bottom lining, boy, is that I am not interested in having _friends._" He spoke the word as if it left a foul taste in his mouth.

"Yeah, big surprise. I guess I always knew something like that about you… but… geez, you fooled me once. I thought you were _my_ friend. I spent a long time believing it…" Kit's voice trailed off. Despite himself, he could not help thinking of fonder memories with Karnage… little things like fencing lessons, talking about airplanes, even tidbits of advice he received, all the way to the bigger, swashbuckling adventures they shared... memories that up until the moment he left the pirates, wished they could be worth staying for.

When he realized his eyes stung even slightly with unshed tears, it sparked a sudden rage. "No, you know what? I just _wanted_ to believe it. I trusted you!"

"What? Do not be telling _me_ about trust, you betraying little-!"

"I _am_ telling you! I never cared about being a pirate, you were the only reason I was there, you dimwit! _You're_ the one that—!" A deafening roar of thunder brought them both to silence.

With his sleeve, Kit pretended to wipe his brow, although he was actually making sure his eyes were dry. It angered him so much, thinking that Karnage just didn't deserve to make him tear up, not then, not now, not ever.

But even if Karnage noticed, he did not say anything about it. He sank down against the cave wall, ears drooped and eyes half shut, fixed on the campfire. Kit regarded him like he had been sedated, but not by a drug, more like being struck across the face with a two-by-four. In his weariness his spite and vanity seemed to have washed away; he looked defeated. Maybe it was because he was indeed feeling ill, but nonetheless, Kit had never seen him quite this way.

Kit ignored him and revived the fire with a few handfuls of sticks. With the relentless thunderstorm raging on, he figured they would be inside the cave until the next day, at least. He warmed his hands and arms over the flames, then laid down on his side, settling for a nap.

Then, after several minutes, Karnage spoke again: "How much… would you want to fly?"

"Huh…?"

"Flying, one day. What does it mean to you?"

"Mean to me?" Kit sat back up, bewildered. Why was he bringing _that _up? "A lot… why?"

"I know it does," Karnage whispered. "You dream about it."

"Well, yeah. Why?"

"And there are times when you want it so much, you cannot think of anything else."

"So...?"

"Did you not ever understand it, boy?"

"Understand _what_?"

Karnage drew a long breath, closing his eyes. "'Understand _what_,' he says."

Kit was becoming uneasy, even worried. During his vagrant years, he had known people who had caught simple colds in bad weather, only to have it progress into something far more serious, and they would at times prattle on. Without treatment, not everyone survived. "Look... Maybe you oughtta put your coat back on. It's probably dry by now."

"Then let it warm," Karnage said. In truth, he wanted his coat, but was too drowsed to exert the energy just to lean forward and grab it.

"Look, if you're feeling that sick… I guess I can hand it to you if you want."

"A favor from _you_? No, I do _not_ want. I am not getting sick, anyway. Just… tired."

"Fine, no skin off my nose. But what's the big deal about me wanting to fly all the sudden?"

"Tell me one person in the world you would give that up for. Your friend Baloo?"

"That doesn't make sense. Baloo just wants me to wait until I'm older."

"If you had to. It's hypo- hyp- _imagine _it."

"I wouldn't give up on it for anyone."

"Indeed. When I learned of Shere Khan's stone… and the thought of plundering an entire city became a reality… I _dreamed_ of it. It was on my mind all the time. You have no idea."

"It's not the same thing, though. You're comparing wanting to be a pilot to shooting up a city. _Small_ difference, isn't there?"

"No, is no difference. When you want something enough, boy… _nothing _would I let stand in my way, not even my own-not even _you_. To plunder an entire city-not a port, not a town-but a city, something no one, no pirate has ever done… I would to _anything_."

"It's still no excuse."

"I would not have tried to hurt you if you had not stolen the estupid stone."

"You would've sooner or later," Kit replied.

"Why?"

The left half of Kit's mouth crept into a small smile. "Before I heard about the stone, I was just gonna run off with your plane."

Karnage groaned, and sank a little lower. "You had no good reason to leave."

"That's easy for you to say," Kit said. "It's not like I had any friends there. You wouldn't know, though... everyone was too scared to give you any trouble."

"Who?"

"The rest of the crew," said Kit. "Some of 'em always gave me a hard time, 'cause I was a kid, and they were jealous 'cause they thought you..." He held that thought and cut to its bottom line: "I just kept away from them, but they didn't always keep away from me."

"Bah. You never had anything to worry about. It was only in your head."

"Yeah, right… like you didn't see what was going on. You practically egged it on yourself."

"Ugh," Karnage moaned. "Do not mention food to my stomach, if you please."

"I'm talking about that time those two guys broke into the Iron Vulture and stole that treasure map."

"Ahh… I was wondering when you were going to complain about _that_. Not that you would just _forget_ about it since it was so long ago."

"I don't care. The way they all surrounded me… you knew they were gonna jump me, and you just let them."

"Oh, get over your whining self, will you? You only had a bump on the head."

"How would _you_ know? You left."

Karnage wouldn't answer that one. "Listen. I promised the men that we would find that treasure… and I _was_ angry with you. Everyone was angry. They needed someone to blame."

"You mean _you_ did. Remember that gray-furred guy you think talks funny? When I saw him the other day, I practically jumped down his throat because of it. I took it out on him when it was all _your_ fault…" Kit finished his thought under his breath. "Jerk."

Karnage's right ear perked up, though the rest of him remained still. "I heard that."

"Good. My throat hurts too much to want to yell anymore."

"Agreed." Karnage shut his eyes again, sleep drawing nearer.

Kit sighed and picked up a stick from the ground to fidget with. By now, he was too restless to try for another nap. Then he noticed Karnage had a bemused grin on his face. "Something funny?"

"You were frightened that night," Karnage said. "Perhaps more than I had ever seen you."

"Yeah, and you knew it all along, too. You could've stood up for me against the guys instead of using me as your scapegoat."

"Yes, I could have," he answered quietly.

Kit glared at him. "Why _didn't_ you?"

The captain didn't reply.

"Did you think I did something to you behind your back?"

"No… _did_ you?"

"No!"

"Oh."

"Like I thought… you did it just to be a jerk."

"Will you quit saying that? It is such an estupid sounding word."

Kit frowned with mock sympathy. "Aw, don't like that word? I'm sorry. Jerk, jerk, jerk. Jerk. Wanna know how it's spelled? Y-o-u!"

With much strain, Karnage slowly sat up, blinking Kit into focus. "Let me teach you something, boy. When I was half your age, I had a… _mild_ imperfectionism. I could not swim."

"Aw, I don't care about-"

"_Quiet_. Let me finish." Karnage slouched forward, grabbed his coat and spread it loosely over his lap. "I had a dislike of-no, I'll say it, I was _afraid_ of the water. But I still learn-ed to swim. My father… he taught me."

Kit looked up at him at the mention of his father; it was the first time he had ever mentioned his family to him. But he minded the stick he held again, trying to keep any interest from being too conspicuous.

"He took me to a dock once, and told me I had two choices… swim back to shore, or drown… that was all."

"Well, lots of people teach their kids to swim that way."

"The point _is_, boy, I swallowed half the ocean, but I did _not_ drown. I was left to do it all on my own, and I _did_ it. I never feared the water again… and soon I could swim better than anyone."

"So?"

"_So, _that! You sink or you swim. It does no good to have someone holding your hand all the time."

"Whatever. I'm actually glad it happened, anyway. That's when it finally started to sink in; some pal _you _were."

"You were never afraid of any of them again," Karnage pointed out. "And there would have been a day, boy, when you would have been able to _brain them all _if they ever crossed you."

That was somewhat of a surprising statement to Kit; in a way, it was a compliment, but apparently Karnage did not mind. In fact, there was a hint of glee in his eyes just imagining it as he said it.

"Yeah, well... I couldn't then. You could've stood up for me."

"I _did_," Karnage scowled.

"Did what?"

"For your information, I came back."

Kit was stunned. "Huh?"

"I actually felt _bad _for your puny-type self! I did not take two steps before I went back in there to order them to leave you by your lonesome."

"Then how'd my head get socked?"

"_Think_, will you, boy? What do you _really _remember?"

"All I remember is the guys surrounding me... I was dizzy and scared, I must've blacked out, I don't know. But I _do _know _you _weren't there."

"So I was one _segundo _too late. Sue me."

Kit cocked his head at him skeptically. "If you're telling the truth, then how'd I get hurt?"

"That was _your_ fault. You fell backwards and hit the back of your sand-filled head on the floor."

"Well next time I'll be sure to fall on my face," frowned Kit.

"Yes. You see? You _did_ learn something from it."

Kit did not know whether he was serious or not, but there was something more important he wanted to know: "How come you never told me before?"

"As if I _wanted_ you to know? I would not have done it for anyone else… you would have thought you were the special-type."

"Oh yeah, I was really spoiled. It doesn't matter, anyway. It was still a rotten thing to do."

Karnage let out a deep sigh, and reclined against the cave wall again. "Perhaps… but rotten is not so bad. Especially when you have to be in charge."

Kit snorted. "Who gave you that idea?"

"But excuse me, boy, have _you _ever been a pirate captain?"

"No..."

"Well, _fancy _that. _I_, on the other hand, have what it takes." With a smirk, he added, "And then some, like I was born with it in my blood."

"You... were?"

"Indubabibly."

"Huh?"

"That means _yes._"

"Oh. Then your parents, I mean your dad..."

The second Kit said that there was an awkward tension in the air. Karnage's heavy eyes raised slowly to meet his, a quiet but intense stare that read of cation.

"He was a pir-?"

"He certainly was _not _a pirate," Karnage snapped. He was prepared to say it before Kit even drew a breath to ask.

"Hey, I didn't _mean _anything by it, I was just wondering. I thought maybe you meant he had a ship."

Karnage fell silent; he absently stared at his coat while adjusting his coat over his lap. "My fool of a father had little more than we have in this cursed cave."

Kit resumed fidgeting with the stick in his hands, eventually holding the tip over the fire as if toasting an imaginary marshmallow. "You didn't like him, huh?"

"_He _did not like-" Karnage coughed, rethinking his words. "If _I_ could care less anymore, so can you. Besides, a father is not supposed to be there for 'liking'."

"What _is_ a father supposed to be there for?"

"Well… to _teach_ you things. Like how to be a man. How to prepare yourself for the world."

"That what yours did?"

Karnage scoffed, almost laughed; then he began to snicker quietly to himself.

"What?"

"I suppose, he did."

Kit stared at him, waiting.

For a beat, Karnage hesitated to continue, but shrugged it off. "I stole my first airplane when I was your age. I crashed it just as I got it off the ground... into a house and started a fire that burned across town for two days, but not one scratch on me, _si_? And they never caught me; I ran away from the crash and no one knew. I ran back home... but my father, he knew, as soon as he heard of what happened. It was the last straw. He booted my booty out on the street. I had the clothes on my back and nothing else. He said never return, and I never did. From that day, I learn-ed to fight and fly on my own; and here I am, a feared pirate, deadly pilot, everything I ever wanted."

Kit's chin drooped, mouth agape. Amidst all the questions he was thinking, it was a bit difficult to pick one. "_Why _did you steal a plane in the first place?"

The reply was solemn and immediate: "To take it somewhere far away. Besides, it was nothing new. I had already stolen so many things... picked so many pockets, swiped so many store counters. Sometimes I was caught, most times no; and I _liked _to steal. I was good at it! When I crashed that plane, I was so disgusted being poor, who cared if the entire world burned."

For all the painful days spent a scavenging vagabond, Kit thought of how many times he longed to be a pilot for the very same reason, to be able to catch the wind and soar beyond where binds of the earth and all its troubles could reach. "If you had a home and family, though... was is _that _bad?"

The wolf shrugged. "You would never understand."

"Try me."

"Well, _he _thought he was always so great… and that _I_ was… _not_-so-great."

"Not-so-great? Oh… I get it. Like he didn't think you were as magnificent as everyone else knows you are."

"Precisabley."

Kit sighed with exasperation. "Of course. Why else."

"_You_ may think it is foolish…"

"What, were you _born_ with the idea that you deserve to be treated better than everyone else?"

"Were _you_ born with the idea that you know everything?"

"You were stealing left and right," said Kit. "Maybe your dad was a decent guy who just tried to keep you straight."

"_Decent_?" Kicking his legs with a sudden spark of energy, Karnage made an attempt to roll forward to his feet, but had no better luck than if his back was magnetized to the wall. "Forget it... I can make fur drapes out of you _after _I wake up."

"Look, I don't wanna start another fight with you. I just think it's ridiculous, you know? Like you thought he was dumb because he didn't worship the ground you walked on."

"Did I _say_ that?"

"Well, that's what it sounded like."

"I told you, _you_ do not know anything. He thought _I_ was... was..."

"Headed for prison?" offered Kit.

"Oh yes, _very_ funny," Karnage sneered. "You are as amusing as a blister on a bull's bottom."

"Did you make him mad a lot?"

No answer.

"There must've been some reason...?"

Karnage thought about it for a moment. As much as he didn't want to speak of it, he hated that the boy thought he knew what he was talking about all the time. "_If_ I were to tell you… you do not repeat it. Ever."

"Sure… I guess."

"No guess. Your word."

Kit thought of how ironic it was for a cheat like Karnage to ask for his word, but nodded. "Yeah."

"Well... my father thought something of me. He would _keelhaul _me for stealing, if not for anything else, but even before then, since I could ever remember... he told me, he told mama, he told everyone he ever met... I never knew why. Hesaid-and this was my own father, boy, who made me!- he had the fortestinitude to say... to even make _me _once believe that... that _I_ was..." Karnage cringed, cupping his hands over his brow.

"Hey, I promised not to tell anyone."

Karnage hesitated to speak. Instead, he twirled his finger around his head.

"Crazy?"

The mere utterance of the word seemed to strike a nerve; Karnage doubled-over as if he had been punched in the stomach. "I am _not_-I have _never _been-in my life... _that_."

"Well, you know... sometimes people use words like that, but they don't really _mean _it that way," said Kit. He grinned a little. "I've called you worse names than that, haven't I?"

"You think the same, no? You think I am-that word."

"Well... honestly?"

"I already know."

Kit stared into the fire, thoughtfully. "I don't think you're crazy. I thought it before, though, I guess... with the lightning gun on all those buildings... there were _people _down there."

"I am knowing that. And I was _not _crazy. I was... _ambitious_."

"And for a while I convinced myself that you weren't in your right mind when you told Dumptruck to throw me overboard. Kinda made it easier to think that I wasn't duped all that time before..." When he closed his eyes and thought about it, the terror was still close in his mind. The heat he felt pressing against his back from the Iron Vulture's spotlights as he plummeted, the cold air ripping by his face and drowning his own screams from his ears, and the black bay waters drawing frighteningly closer...

With a quick shudder, he shook himself from the memory. Over the fire Karnage could see Kit's eyes were heavy and glassy, sparkling in yellow before the flames.

"Why'd you do it?" Kit's voice was like a cracking whisper. "I know what you thought, but... you could've put me in the brig, you could've done _anything_... you really wanted me to die."

Karnage did not reply. Perhaps he didn't hear him, although, perhaps, by the way he slid down against the cave wall as if he was going to sleep, he was avoiding the question.

"Why'd you even want me to be a pirate in the first place?"

"I am not speaking of it anymore," Karnage said.

"All along, I was just another one of your things, right?" said Kit. There was no reply. "I want to know," said Kit, louder. "Just tell me... honestly. I think you owe me that much, at least."

Just then, something seemed to stir inside Karnage... and it wasn't the eggnog this time. He sat up, momentarily throwing his weariness aside, looking at Kit in the most profound disbelief that had ever become of him. "I... _owe _you?" He pointed to himself and the boy, respectively. "I... _me_... owe _you_. Is _that _what I am hearing?"

"You're not deaf, are you?"

"Of all the-_you _are the crazy one! I never owed you a thing! You had _nothing _before I gave it to you! And how did you thank _me_?"

"Then? Why _did _you want me around?"

"_Because_," Karnage spat, "I-!" But he paused, as if he just caught himself and thought of what he was about to say. "I..." He paused yet again, sighing, and scratched his brow slowly. "You said so yourself. You thought I was-and I... wanted..." Another pause, but this time he just slouched back down, frustrated. "You _know _why," he said quietly, as if only to himself.

Then, he suddenly grew embarrassed, perhaps realizing he had somehow admitted to more than he would have the boy hear. "Bah, enough of this nincompoopery," he scoffed.

Kit drew his knees to his chin and bowed his head, letting out a resigned, frustrated sigh. _'Sure... what did I __**think **__he was going say, anyway,' _he thought_._

Haphazardly, Karnage snatched up his coat and swung it behind his back, and began to lay down on his stomach; but as he rested his head in his arms, Kit barely heard him mutter, "You _never _had to run away."

Looking down, Kit glanced at the wadded up red kerchief. He had taken it from his sweater pockets with everything else, and purposely ignored it. He never did throw it away in the jungle. The last time he had seen it was just before the infamous lightning gun attack on Cape Suzette... he had yanked it off and merely tossed it under his bed before falling asleep that night. What he held now could have very well have been a different kerchief altogether; after all that was said and done, how likely was it that Karnage would have not only found it, but kept it with him as if it meant anything.

***

* * *

After returning to the Iron Vulture from Zaui, Don Karnage spent the wee hours of the morning in his cabin, counting and sorting Jacque Latte Mousse's fortune. During the trip back, he noticed what eager interest Kit had in the gold, by the way the boy would stare at the old wooden chest with his eyes full of wonder. Karnage knew the feeling; after all, it was the boy's first buried treasure. The captain let Kit stay up with him and look at all the valuable pieces… but made a promise beforehand that if Kit tried to take anything, there would be a new bearskin rug on the bridge.

Kit sat on the floor next to the chest, surrounded by a sea of gold coins and jewelry. He was more fascinated and amused with it all than Karnage, who sat at his desk, busy with counting and examining doubloons.

"Whoa..." Kit marveled at an emerald-studded gold crown. "Did you see this one, Captain?"

"Yes yes, I saw it," Karnage absently replied, not paying attention to what he was talking about.

Kit polished the crown's precious metal with his sleeve; its green stones glistened with a fractured reflection of his face. He put it on his head, just to see how it felt. It was far too big, and folded his ears down. "Whaddaya think? Was I made for royalty or what?"

Karnage looked at him and groaned. "Boy, I said you could look, not _wear_."

Kit pulled the crown off his head and set it down gently. "Jeepers… how much do you think all this stuff is worth?"

"More than you could fit in a piggy-bank," said Karnage, eyeing a coin with his magnifying glass with express admiration. Gold always did look much better up close.

"I bet it could buy a lot of planes…" Kit picked up a nearby doubloon and studied it. He'd never seen so much gold before in his life, let alone touched it. He would have loved it if he could keep one. "Hey, Captain?"

"What?"

"Do you think I could have-?"

"No," Karnage was quick to answer.

"But there's so many… just one?"

"I said _no_. This is a _serious_ treasure, boy. You are too young."

Kit frowned. "Am not…"

"Are too!" Karnage said. "Besides, what would _you_ do with a gold doubloon? Walk into a candy shop and ask for a _chocolate _bar?"

"Well… no. I could just get the chocolate with the ol' four-finger discount, right?"

The two grinned at each other. "Now you are learning," Karnage said.

"So what _do_ you do with stuff like this?" asked Kit.

"We take it all back to our secretive hideout, of course."

"Do you split it with your men?"

"Yes… sort of," Karnage said. "You see, a captain has a special arrangement with the crew."

"Yeah? Like how?"

"What's mine is mine, and what's theirs is _ours_. You see?"

Kit nodded. "Sounds like a pretty good deal if you happen to be the captain."

Karnage laughed fiendishly. "You had better be believing of it."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"You have _been_ asking me questions all day," Karnage said, although not yet annoyed. "What is stopping you now?"

"Well, I was just thinking, after I helped with the museum tonight…" Kit cupped a string of pearls in his hands, caught breathless in their glistening beauty. "Wow," he whispered. He looked up at Karnage, unsure of how to ask what he wanted to. "I can be a pirate, too, can't I?"

Karnage nearly laughed-he thought that was made quite obvious already-but he forced his countenance solemn. "I thought you want to be a pilot."

"I could be both," said Kit. "_You _are."

"Once a pirate, a pirate for life, boy. You think you have any idea what you want?"

"As long as I'm with you," shrugged Kit.

"Oh? Well then, let's see what you got, yes-no?" Karnage set down the gold doubloons and leaned back in his chair, eyeing Kit as if inspecting him from head to toe. Then he gestured for Kit to stand up and come toward him, and, as the boy did, rubbed his chin doubtfully. "I don't know. You don't look like much of a pirate."

"What can I do?" asked Kit, looking himself over.

"Snarl," said Karnage. "Show me your _pirate _face!"

"Um... grrr!" Kit scowled and brandished his teeth, though he elicited no approval from the captain.

"No no, more teeth, more wrinkle in the nose, like you have fangs!" said Karnage. "You have to be scary!"

Kit had his face warped as best as he could. "Dis 'etter?"

"Tsk, awful," said Karnage, shaking his head. He got up and had Kit follow him to his bureau, while asking, "What _can _you do that a pirates does?"

"I bet I could fly like you've never seen before," answered Kit quickly and with confidence, if not hopefulness.

"That I would be sure," groaned the captain.

"And... I can steal," said Kit. "And I'm not scared of a fight!" He grinned sheepishly as he noticed Karnage looking pleased with those answers. "And... I'm not sure what else. I'm kind of new here."

Karnage took from one of the bureau's drawers a red kerchief, and he held it by the corners toward Kit's shoulders, sizing him up with it. "To be a pirate takes no experience," he said. "Only loyalty." As he spoke, led Kit the nearby full-length mirror, and behind held it in a triangle fold under his chin. "You can have anything you ever dream if you are willing to simply take it. But if you ever take it from me, it will be your _last _mistake you make, you know what I'm saying?"

Kit caught the wolf's serious glare in the mirror's reflection, and he did not need to be drawn a picture to take his meaning. "Got ya. But... I can fly, right?"

"Of course not!" replied Karnage. Kit's face fell glumly, but was brightened up just as quickly when Karnage added, "Yet."

"Yeah?"

"Supposing I show you how it's done sometime," said Karnage, placing his hands over Kit's shoulders. "You, my boy, with me, would make a most worthy pirate. I am not holding my breath, but you _might _even learn how to swing a dagger without ruining your captain's pants! And you would like it much better than where you have been before, no?"

Kit's ears were practically glowing as he took in all of what Karnage was saying. Never had he been thought of as worthy in someone else's eyes, and never had dreams of aviation, adventure, and riches been so real and so close to grasp. Realizing he would not again have to sleep in a street, go hungry, or be alone, his hand met Karnage's, feeling his knuckles as if he wanted to make sure he was not going to snap out of a dream and find himself laying in a dark alley. "I don't ever wanna leave."

"Then…" Karnage at last brought the scarf fully around Kit's neck and tied it. The boy was truly looking like a pirate already. "You are with me from now on, yes?"

Through the mirror, Kit saw Karnage's expression… he was proud, but not of himself. He was proud of Kit.

"Yes," the cub smiled.

* * *

A broken promise. It was like a black, foreboding cloud that hung over him when Baloo had told him, just after he left the pirates, _'Aw, forget about them, Lil Britches... from now on, yer with me!'_

By then, there was no reason to tell Baloo that such words had already been spoken in another place and time, or speak of how much it hurt to have your trust stolen and shattered by your best friend. Kit had several reasons to despise Don Karnage, perhaps more reasons to hate him than anyone else, but there was no kidding himself; he despised Karnage the most because once, in a life not very distant in the past, he loved him, and thought of him as the greatest.

He folded the scarf into a triangle and held it by its corners up to his chest. Seeing it dangle under his collar again brought about a myriad of feelings, like a year's worth of deja vu, with all his days as a pirate flashing through his mind. Like reminiscing through an old photo album kept in his thoughts, he passed through the fun and difficult times alike, but most of all, there was the mentorship of the charismatic captain who he once thought the world of.

The scarf was heavily wrinkled like it had been stashed in the pocket through many laundry cleanings, and it was missing peculiar nicks and scruff marks that he seemed to remember being there... and he was ever self-conscious that he was sitting there studying it so much to determine if it was the same that was given to him. Finally it made sense to him, though; he was hoping it was the same scarf, that Karnage somehow was still thinking of him, just as he hoped a lot of things about Karnage that he wished were true.

He looked across at Karnage, who had fallen asleep, shivering a little from the wind that swept inside the cave now and then; his coat had fallen to his side. Kit thought about the things that might have been, where he would be that day, had he never left. He considered how happy he was now... and yet, how he wished it could have been different, to never have wanted to run away because he knew he was held high in someone's heart.

Kit folded the scarf and rolled it up in his fist, slowly crawled toward Karnage's coat, and tucked the scarf back in the coat's last intact pocket. Karnage would never know, so Kit thought, how he felt the day he ran away. He looked down and saw the heartless pirate who would readily throw others' lives away for his own greed. Karnage would never know his hurt, and certainly never his anger. Kneeling over him, Kit thought of all the things he would have wanted to get off his chest; to shout in the wolf's ear with curses and insults; to kick him in the jaw and see how his smug his face would be after that; to simply hurt him in any way, to exact some amount of revenge.

He couldn't. When his chance had finally come, he did not want to see him hurt. He wanted to see him as he first knew him, the captain whom he would have followed to the ends of the earth.

He spread the coat back over the wolf's shoulders, watched him for a moment as his shivering quelled, then crawled back to the other side of the fire, and laid down on his side. Sleep would not find him easily that night.

Outside, the sky grew darker yet, and the mist of the fog crept across the mouth of the cave, washing the jungle invisible under its grey breath. Only when lightning struck could the trees be seen as brief, flickering silhouettes. The rain poured relentlessly, never slowing through dusk and nightfall.


	8. The little girl

**Chapter 8**

**The little girl**

The next day, there was an awkward silence between Kit and Don Karnage as they meandered though the soggy foliage. Though the rain had stopped, the sky over the jungle was still densely cloaked with gray clouds.

Karnage wiped his brow for the umpteenth time that morning, but it was no use. The air was still, hot, and direly humid. Even if the trees were not dripping with warm water, he would have been less soaked if someone had sprayed him with a fire hose. Kit kept a step or two behind him, constantly pulling at collar and sleeves of his sweater.

It was their fourth day in the jungle, although it already seemed like weeks had passed. With no map or supplies, every step they took was burdened with uncertainty of what lie ahead. From time to time, Kit checked his compass and routed them vaguely West, where at least they knew they would eventually come to the coast and the towns along it. It was unspokenly agreed that any delusions they might have had about finding the fabled golden stronghold were all but gone.

Karnage felt hardly better than he did the day before; thought they spent most of the day at rest inside the cave, it did little to rejuvenate them, especially when sprung against such sweltering weather. Not to mention, they had not eaten in almost two whole days. Karnage _hated_ being hungry. There had rarely been a time in his entire life when he did not have enough, if not more than plenty, to eat.

Every so often, he took a covert glance behind him to check on the boy's progress. He saw Kit was slowing down; for however feeble the pirate grew as they trudged forward, Kit was smaller and weaker, and struggling all the more.

Karnage stopped for a moment so Kit could catch up, and searched the bushes and treetops above for any kind of fruit, but there were only leaves. Even _mangos_ would have looked good to him about then.

Beside him, Kit fell to his knees in the wet, leafy soil, taking deep breaths.

Hesitating for a moment, Karnage broke the silence that had lasted for hours already. "Come… come on, boy. The trees have to stop somewhere."

"I just… need a minute," panted Kit.

Karnage hesitated again, then took Kit by the shoulder to help him rise. "Come on, we cannot stay here."

The cub staggered forward and wiped the sweat from his eyes. "It's impossible. This whole place is impossible. It was so cold last night, and now this…"

They suddenly heard a wolf howl echo in the distance; it was faint and possibly far away, but enough to make their fur on their necks tingle.

"H'okay-l-let us not panic."

"Yeah… panic bad..." Kit's heart began to pound, dreading to even imagine trying to outrun a pack of wolves. "They… they wouldn't come down this far into the jungle anyway." There was a long, uncertain pause. "Would they?"

"Ehm… _no_, of course not," Karnage answered. "But… you would not be happening to tell what direction it came from?"

Kit pointed to their left. "Uh, tha-that way, I think."

Thus, the captain started off in the opposite direction. "Then we go _this_ way now, yes?"

Kit nodded and followed, with a bit more rush in his step.

**

* * *

**

Music and laughter rattled the thin wooden walls of Louie's restaurant, where happy-go-lucky pilots from all over the Pacific crowded in for a jolly time.

In the last couple of days, the news of the air pirates kidnaping a twelve-year-old boy spread to every pilot with a radio. All were asked and agreed to report any sighting of the pirates, notably their command ship, the Iron Vulture. But it was in their show of camaraderie that something became surprisingly apparent: far and wide, the Iron Vulture was nowhere to be seen.

The rumors had spread like a wildfire on dry brush...

"... shot down over Hounsland, I hear!..."

"... dumb mutts plowed themselves right into Mount Neverest!..."

"... saw it with his own eyes, he did! A thousand-foot fireball! Fuel tanks must've blown!..."

"... scattered wreckage all the way from Timbuktu to Timbukthree! Gonna go see it for myself tomorrow!..."

The reports were as inconsistent as they were numerous, but nobody seemed to mind... except for perhaps the only two somber faces on the entire island. Baloo and Rebecca sat at a table at the far side of the restaurant, within the old beached ruins of the seafaring galleon Louie had converted into a dining area.

"Everyone seems so happy," Rebecca said. "Ironic."

"Uh-huh," muttered Baloo.

"And all those stories... it's just unbelievable."

"Uh-huh."

She sighed, looking out the window at the docks, where the Sea Duck was being attended to. "How long does it take them to put gas in the plane?"

"'Bout ten minutes," Baloo replied. "You want somethin' to eat while we're here?"

"I'm all right. Do you?"

"Nah, I ain't hungry much." He grinned, despite himself. "Think that's the first time I've ever said that here."

Louie emerged from the jovial crowd and joined them at their table. "Sorry folks," he frowned. "I've asked every cat in the joint. Ain't nobody seen hide nor hair of them sky pirates all week."

"Yeah, we kinda figured," Baloo replied; he was absently watching a pilot at the bar explain to his neighbors how big of a wave the Iron Vulture must have made when it slammed into the ocean and sank for good.

"Try to ignore them, Baloo," Rebecca said. "They don't know what they're talking about."

"An' that ain't no lie!" said Louie. "Them tales are taller than a giraffe on stilts."

"I just don't get it," sighed Baloo, slouching over their table. "I couldn't go a week without running into those mangey pirates, an' when I _wasn't _even lookin' for 'em."

"Well, everyone's on the lookout for ya, cuz."

"I bet," Rebecca drawled. "They _look _concerned."

"Aw, now don't look at it like that," said Louie. "We all feel bad about Kit's missin', you know that. Heck, most of the folk around this place are as fond of that boy as they are ol' Baloo here. It's just that for the the pilots, no pirates is the best news they've heard in a long time."

"Well, maybe," said Rebecca.

"Hey, how about I get you two a few of my _spectacular _speckled banana burritos? Made 'em fresh today with my own two feet!"

"I'll... pass," Rebecca cringed.

"Maybe some other time," said Baloo.

"Well... look, folks. If there's anything I _can _do, anything at all, you don't be shy."

"All I wanna know is where those flyin' rats are, Louie," said Baloo. "That's all."

"I wish I could tell ya, Fuzzy. I really do."

* * *

Meanwhile, far away somewhere in the frozen mountains of Northern Thembria:

"It-t's all y-your f-fault," Mad Dog chattered, as he swung a pickaxe into a clump of ice.

"Dar, it is n-not!" Dumptruck argued.

On the slopes of an snow-capped mountaintop sat the Iron Vulture, its engines frozen stiff after a brief venture into a Thembrian snowstorm.

"Oh y-yeah? Wh-who's the one that read the m-map ups-s-side d-down?"

Most of the pirates were on the outside flight deck, chipping and shoveling the ice away.

Dumptruck manned a wide snow-shovel and was carelessly heaving big piles of slush behind his back, to the chagrin of some of the other crew. "Ow! Hey, watch it fatso!"

"Well it w-wasn't _me _who read the map w-wrong," Mad Dog griped.

"How d-do you know?"

"B-because, stupid, _I can't read_!"

"Will you two shaddup!" Ratchet hollered. "We gotta get outta here bef-fore all the g-gears freeze over!"

The last four days aboard the Vulture had been chaotic, with hardly anyone taking Dumptruck's leadership seriously. Trying to thaw the ship from the mountain was the first time the crew had come together in a relatively organized fashion since Karnage was lost, and that was likely only because they were faced with the only alternative of freezing.

"I d-don't wanna be c-captain no more," Dumptruck sulked. "I want der captain to b-be der captain again!"

"Aw, shadd-_up_!" Ratchet and Mad Dog cried.

* * *

Slowly but steadily, the gray clouds scattered and the sun flooded down over the jungle, pouring bright rays through the branches of the shadowy trees. By the afternoon, the air was none cooler, but had dried considerably.

As for Kit and Karnage, they had finally found a way to make the time on their trek pass faster, by doing something radically different since they landed in the jungle… not arguing. At least, not as much.

"_You_ stole a plane?" Karnage asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I didn't _steal_ it," Kit replied. "Well... not exactly, anyway. I just wanted to show 'em that I could fly. I told ya, the whole flight school thing was just a big hoax. I didn't wanna go home without proving I could do it."

"But you _did_ steal it! Trust me, I am a pirate. I know my stealing."

Kit shrugged. "It's not like I kept it."

"So, what _else_ have you stolen lately?"

"_Nothing_. I thought we were talking about planes?"

"Sure, sure." Karnage looked straight ahead and absently smirked.

"What's that look for?"

"I am thinking of that one phrase… 'a bird by any other name… flocks with the same feathers.'"

Kit stopped in his tracks, bewildered, but then shook his head and moved on. "No, don't think I even _want _to know."

**

* * *

**

It wasn't long before the sound of running water brought them to a stream, one that was relatively quiet now, but had evidently been like a raging river during the storm, sweeping everything in its path away. Its black, silt banks were steep and several feet wide, clean of loose stones, wood, or other debris. It was almost as if someone took a bulldozer and plowed deeply its path through the jungle.

The two took it as an opportunity to quench their thirst and rinse off a bit. Karnage wrenched his boots off to let his feet soak. Coming down from the icy mountains, the water was cold, refreshing, and very welcome.

Kit knelt close to the bank and observed his distorted reflection in the rippling stream... it was not a flattering image; tired, weak, and dirty. It was a picture reminiscent of his vagabond past, looking into the rain puddles on deserted city streets. If it was any consolation, though-and it was for him-Karnage didn't exactly look like he'd make the cover of _Harper's Brassiere_ either.

They searched the surrounding trees for any sign of fruit, but all they saw were leaves, vines, and more leaves. Even the birds, though they could be heard, were nowhere to be seen.

Kit looked over towards a nearby fern and sighed. "How'd you like a salad?"

"Well, perhaps with little blue cheese and-" Karnage stopped and shuddered once he realized what Kit meant. "Yech! Shut up, will you?"

"Okay, _real_ idea. We follow this water and see where it goes, prob'ly to a river or lake. Then we could try to catch some fish."

"You might not have noticed, my boy, but I seem to have forgotten my fishing pole. You?"

"We'll _think_ of something," Kit scowled. "I'm starving!" Suddenly, a sound caught his attention. "Hey, you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"I dunno, maybe a hurt animal, or… wait a minute…"

"What?"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was someone crying."

Karnage perked his left ear and listened. "_I_ do not hear anything."

"Shh." Kit stood up, took a few steps downstream, trying to zero in on the sound. "Yeah… someone's over there! Come on!"

Karnage groaned and reluctantly pulled his boots back on, despite the protest of his aching arches. So much for resting.

Kit plowed across the waist-deep water and through a few bushes, taking sharp glances from side to side. "Hello? Is anyone-oh my gosh!"

Tucked in between a tree and mossy bolder, as if hiding, sat a tiny tigress cub. Her sobbing quelled as soon as she looked up to see Kit, but her wide, teary eyes shone with alarm.

"Oh my gosh," Kit said again. By his judgment, she could not have been more than four or five years old. Her black, shoulder-length hair was all but a straggled mess, and she wore only a light-brown tunic, damp and muddy.

Kit faltered a moment, having no idea what to say or do. She seemed more shocked than scared at the sight of the stranger. He slowly leaned down, to her eye level. "Um… hey there. Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

As much as he expected, she did not understand what he was saying, but his tone seemed comforting to her, and she began to calm down.

Then Karnage trampled beside him, ranting under his breath. "I am _telling_ you, boy, you are hearing thi-what is _that_?" he asked, pointing at the girl as if he had just seen a strange creature from another planet. She stared at the pirate and shrank back; _now_ she was frightened.

Kit shot him a look. "What does it look like? Keep your voice down, you're scaring her."

"But, but-how-what-where-!"

Kit shushed him and turned back to the cub; listening to their banter, she grew more confused than fearful. He took a careful step towards her and held out his hand. "Hey, it's okay, don't be scared. Can you come out of there?"

He waited patiently as the little girl gave him a long, thoughtful stare, deciding whether these two strangers were friend or foe. She slowly stood up and took an unsure step from her hiding place, but seemed reluctant to go any further. She kept her back against the bolder and her hands behind her back.

Kit knelt down in front of her and smiled. "There, you see? Everything's fine."

"Of course, just hunkitty-dory," Karnage grumbled, crossing his arms. "Where could she have come from?"

"I don't know. Looks like she's been through a typhoon, if you ask me." Kit placed his hand on her shoulder and looked her over for injuries. "Oh, man… I bet you got swept up in all that water somehow, didn't you? You don't look hurt, though."

"But _now_ what? What are we supposed to do with her?"

"I don't think we got any choice, do you?" She finally let Kit take her by the hands; he noticed she was not trembling. "She's as lost as we are. We gotta keep her with us."

Karnage shuddered at the thought. "Oh no we don't!"

"Then what do _you _think we should do? Just leave her here to die?"

In the pirate captain world, moral choices were simple to make; one did not do anything one's piratical self did not want to do, period. Karnage very much did not want the young girl tagging along, wanted her far away from him, and it ticked him off a great deal that he didn't quite have the heart to demand he get his way this time. "Bah, fine, but I am not doing any sitting on her, understand?"

Kit took a few seconds to let that one sink in. And to think up to that point he thought he could decipher anything Karnage said. "What?"

"What _what_? 'Baby-sitting' is _your_ fooligan expression. Don't ask _me_ to make sense out of it."

The girl looked up at Karnage curiously as Kit led her away. "Come on, kid, let's try to find your home. And don't worry, you're not the only one here that doesn't understand English."

**

* * *

**They decided the best way to go would be to follow the water trail upstream, figuring that if the natives knew the girl had been swept away, they would be most likely be searching downstream. Hopefully, they thought, it would not be that long of a hike before they found somebody.

"The natives I met were pretty friendly people," Kit told Karnage, who was following behind the two kids, trying to ignore that the little girl would not stop looking back at him. "I bet they'll give us plenty to eat."

Though it sounded like refreshing news, Karnage couldn't help but frown. He was reminded that until they found the girl's village-_if_ they found it-she was yet another mouth to feed, and overall, just more of a burden than they needed. But, despite himself, he had to admit she was not that much trouble. He thought it was strange that she didn't speak, but at least she didn't cry or make annoying noises. He also had to admit that Kit was doing well with her, speaking with her even though she could not understand.

"You spend a lot of time with these tiny terror types?" he asked.

"Me? Nuh-uh," replied Kit. "Just Miz Cunningham's daughter, sometimes."

"Ah yes… the little yellow dust ball with the doll you ripped apart."

Kit groaned inwardly. "You always remember the best parts about everything, don't you." He noticed the cub was getting winded and sweaty, though she kept up without complaint. He tried not to go too fast for her, but her legs were much shorter, and had to work double-time to keep up. "I think we better stop for a minute. She's getting tired."

"_Her_ tired?" Karnage found the nearest log and plopped down. Kit joined him, and gestured for the little girl to sit in the spot between them, but she seemed reluctant. She stared at Karnage, as if she was unsure to approach him.

"It's okay," Kit told her. "He won't bite."

"Oh yes I wi-ill," the pirate said, giving the girl a mean snarl that brandished his pointy canines.

For a moment, she knitted her eyebrows at him… then giggled… _then_ tried to make the same face he was making.

Kit looked at him smugly. "Whaddaya got to say about that, Mister Big Bad Wolf?"

Karnage rested his chin in his palm and sulked as the girl climbed up between them. "Go find a poisonous snake to play with, will you boy?"

Kit only laughed. "Hey, at least she's not scared. She really trusts us."

"Goody," Karnage muttered. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that she was still watching him, as if he was the most curious creature she had ever seen. He knew a handsome face like his was only natural to marvel at, but this was too odd. "Why must she keep looking at me like that?"

"Maybe she's trying to figure you out," Kit said.

"Figure _what_ out?" Karnage pointed toward the distance. "Look, girl! There is _jungle_ over there! Very interesting!"

She reached up and squeezed his nose.

"Hey!" he yelped, and knocked her hand away. "What do you think that is, a bicycle horn?"

"Come to think of it," Kit snickered.

"Quiet boy," Karnage ordered, and shook his finger at them both. "That is the problem with you childlike children. All the dum-dum things you do! And-" He froze when he noticed the little girl shaking her own finger at him. "Will you _stop that_!"

Although the girl did not as much flinch from his tone, it made Kit mad. "Aw, quit being such a grouch, already. She likes you! For _some _reason."

Karnage glared down at her, stuck out his tongue and blew her a raspberry.

"Oh yeah, you're a _model_ of maturity," Kit said dryly.

The girl paused in thought for a moment, looked up at the captain with a grin, and replied with a raspberry of her own.

Karnage sighed and looked up at the sky. "Give me stren-_**mangos!**_"

Kit jolted, almost falling backwards. "Wha'?"

"Up there!" Karnage exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "Lookitty look!"

Kit and the cub looked up to where he was pointing, and sure enough, overhead were mangos growing in the trees, amidst blossoms of pink flowers. It was the best sight he'd seen in days. "All right!"

Practically giddy, Karnage raced to the nearest tree. "I never thought I would be so _glad_ to see any of those putrid-tasting persimmons!"

"Yeah! Gimme a lift?"

"What, you think I am standing here for my health? _Yes_, go!"

Karnage knelt down and Kit hopped up on top of his shoulders, and then sprang to the nearest bough, and from there he had quite a bit of climbing to do. The trees were too tall and clustered to see their tops from ground level, and the fruit did not start growing until at least three stories high. Most of the branches were fairly slender, so he took his time, making sure one was not going to break from under his feet. After a few minutes, he had scaled his way to a thicker branch, where he scooted towards a cluster of mangos and flowers at the end.

"Make sure to give her one," he called down.

"I know, I know, just let me have them!"

Kit plucked a ripe, tender reddish-brown mango and threw it down…

_*splat*_

… a little too hard. Seething, Karnage wiped the sticky orange pulp from his face and shook his fist at him. "Not like _that_, you baboon!"

"Sor-_ree_!" Kit picked a couple more and simply let them drop down. "Catch 'em this time!"

Karnage did, and handed one to the little girl. "Here, and do not be wanting _me_ to peel it for you."

With a flick of her fingers, she extended her small but sharp claws, and, before Karnage knew it, had sliced her mango into neat sections.

He caught a few more and turned his nose up at her. "Well _I_ can do that too. I just don't _want_ to, is all."

"There, that oughtta be plenty for us." Kit wiped his hands on his sleeves, and took a good look around the tree. He could finally see some of birds they had been hearing from the ground, though they were just quick blurs of yellow, red, and orange randomly flashing by. The thickness of branches and leaves surrounding him would not allow for much of a view.

Then he heard Karnage from below, "While you are up there, boy, you better get some for yourself!"

"Oh, gee, thanks." Kit spotted a few more mangos right overhead, and climbed a bit higher. On his way, though, something in the distance caught his eye. He could just barely make it out through all the clutter around him; it looked like some sort of stone wall. "What in the world…?"

Back on the ground, Karnage and the native cub were already well into their meal. The little girl sat cross-legged by the captain's feet, making smaller bite-sized slices out of hers, with all the skill and diligence of a craftsman at his trade. Despite her age, she was obviously no novice at the finer points of mango preparation. Karnage, on the other hand, simply took big, hungry bites out of his, not even taking the time to carry them back to his sitting spot. "I _still_ hate these things," he grumbled between gulps.

Kit kept climbing for a better view of what he had seen. It wasn't until he glanced down that he was reminded of the caution of his height… the ground below him had disappeared from sight.

After a few moments, Karnage realized he had not heard anything from above. "Boy? Where are you?"

Kit could scarcely hear him. "I'm checking something out, hold on!" A bird suddenly darted by his face, startling him enough to make him lose his footing. He had to grab onto the nearest branch with both hands to save himself.

Karnage heard him yelp, but could only see some leaves falling out of the tree. "Boy! Now what?"

"I'm… I'm okay! I just slipped!"

"Well _stop _it!"

At his angry tone, Kit shook his head at how awkwardly parental he sounded. "O-_kay_! Sheesh."

Once he was safe on a sturdy bough, he picked a nearby mango and took a couple bites, then started moving out toward the edge. A breeze was blowing; although it was not very strong, it was enough to keep him careful. With so many leaves rustling in his ears, and branches swaying all around, it was like negotiating a way though a sort of turning, twisting, arboreal kaleidoscope. He often took his dexterity for granted, but this time, the thought of slipping again and breaking every bone in his body helped to curb that.

With the wealth of trees, he still could not get a clear view of what he had spotted, but could see a little more of it. It _was_ some sort of wall… or at least, what was left of it. He could see large cracks in it, and it had probably been abandoned long ago; he remembered Tyler mentioning how the ancient Felocians had cities all throughout the jungle, though they had all been reduced to rubble by now. Before he started his climb back down, he polished off the rest of his mango.

Karnage had gorged down three of them, which were quite more than he would ever want to eat again in his lifetime. He let Kit be and went back to the log to have a seat; he did not have to look to know the girl had gotten up and followed him like a shadow. She climbed up beside him, still munching away.

"_Follow_ me if you want… but touch my nose again and lose your hand, you sticky-fingered stinkbug."

She gave him a puzzled look, as if seriously trying to understand what he was saying. She offered one of her last mango slices up to him.

"No, _you_ eat that. Look, do you not know you should be _scared_ of me? I am a mean, vicious pirate! I could be doing horrible things to you!"

She leaned forward, looking at the front of his coat. With fascination, she pointed at one of his brass buttons, which though tarnished by now, still had a moderate shine. "Ouro?"

Karnage just groaned. "You know, people like you take all the fun out of being the bad guy."

When she reached for his button, he pushed her arm away. "No, no touching." Then after a beat, something dawned on him. "Uno momento, what did you say?"

Suddenly he heard a branch snap, followed by a soft thud; then, Kit moaning, "Oww."

"I hear somebody fall-ing," Karnage said, hardly concealing a melody of I-told-you-so in his voice.

"Aw, I'm fine." Kit joined them, hands on his backside; he chose not to sit down. "Landing gear didn't drop."

Turning back to the little girl, Karnage gestured at his button. "Here, what do you call this?"

"She talked to you?" Kit asked.

"Ouro," the girl repeated, then added, "Bri'hante."

"Oro brillante," Karnage said, mostly to himself. "Huh."

"What, is that Spanish?"

"No, but close. She says 'shiny gold.'"

"You mean you can understand each other? Well ask her something, then!"

"Like _what_? Where the nearest playground is?"

"Like, uh… ask her if she fell in the water!"

"We _know_ that."

"Just do it. See if she understands. Wait, ask what her name is!"

"What am I looking like," snapped Karnage, "a two-way radio?" Kit folded his arms and waited. At length, Karnage gave up and asked her in Spanish, but she gave him that same confused look again.

"Well, it was worth a shot," said Kit . "Guess what, though, when I was up in that tree, I saw something we should take a look at… could be an old village."

"A village?"

"Yeah. Well, I don't know _what_ it is, really. Come on, it's right this way!"

**

* * *

**

As they drew closer to the structures Kit had seen, Karnage surveyed the trees, fairly puzzled. "I am hearing something wrong."

"I don't hear anything," Kit said.

"That is what is wrong… I am hearing _nothing_!"

Kit listened, and realized he was right. The sounds of all the birds, insects, and animals they had heard constantly throughout the jungle had grown distant. "Huh."

Though Kit was not bothered by it, Karnage was somewhat spooked. The jungle was too quiet… ghostly, even. The little girl, trailing close in his footsteps, also pondered the trees, seemingly just as bewildered at the silence. If _she _wasn't familiar with it, he thought, then something was definitely suspicious.

"I am not liking this detour of yours, boy."

"Aw, come on. Who knows, there might be some of her family over there!"

Eventually, they stood in front of the ruins of a stone edifice, made of weathered, square blocks of granite, each one as tall as Kit. It was only perhaps two stories tall, with its crumbled top edge blending into the trees. Leafy vines poured down over its sides like still waterfalls, draping most of it from view.

"My my, look what we have come all this way to find," said Karnage.

"Yeah! But... what do you think it could be?"

"A _wall_. I have _always _wanted to see one."

Kit ignored his sarcasm and began walking along its length. "Look at the size of these bricks... can you imagine how big it used to be?"

"Can _you _imagine how much I do not care?"

"Where's your sense of adventure?" Kit pulled back a bundle of vines, where a few rays of sunlight shone through; he revealed a decaying archway, which stretched as high up as the ruins itself. At its height, rest of the structure apparently vanished in the centuries, although one could search around the area and find chunks and pieces of the fallen wall barely poking out from the soil and foliage... remnants of a civilization long swallowed by the earth and forgotten by time.

Just as he was about to walk through to the other side, he stepped on something sharp and metallic that made his foot smart. "Yeowch, what'n...?" It was a rusted can of baked beans, the top cut open but still attached. If anything, it was an indication that they were not the only recent visitors. Kit scooped it up with his toes and kicked it aside, then went on.

The little girl, watching him, walked over to the can and picked it up. By the way she examined it, it was evident she had never seen one before. She folded open the top and gave the inside a good sniff, prompting her with a sour-looking face.

"Hey, lookit this!" Kit called from up ahead.

Karnage, however, had his attention elsewhere. He kept scanning the quiet surroundings, looking for any clue he could find. It was becoming a frustrating paradox... the more he observed, the more he _knew _something was wrong, yet he could not spot a single substantial hint as to what it was. The flora high above him even looked different, somehow... almost as if a light, gray fog had stilled within the branches and faded out the normally deep evergreen colors.

"This place is giving me the jeeping heepers..." A tugging on his pant leg snapped him out of it. "What do _you _want?"

The girl held up the can to him, as if certain he would know what to do with it. Karnage took it and read the faded label, and tossed it away with a shudder; in his experience, spending so much time in the confined quarters of an airship with three dozen slobs did much to make baked beans a potent contraband.

"Boy?" He was none too pleased to notice that reckless reptile had disappeared; he'd much rather give his tail-section a swift kick before having to pull it out of danger again. He asked the girl, "So, where did the _other _half-pint hairball run off to?" To assist in the translation, he made a gesture at about Kit's height.

She realized what he meant and pointed where Kit had gone, and followed Karnage as he ducked through the vines to find him, quietly pronouncing to herself, "Bo... bo-ee..."

Crossing the wall, it was as if he had just stepped into a different world. The jungle, overpowering as it ever was, ceased to be jungle as much as the remains of an apocalypse. Everywhere, giant tree trunks stood thriving over decayed, ancient buildings. Some were barely intact, and others were but large piles of rubble settling in a grave of lush overgrowth. Fallen towers stretched over the ground like the bones of great giants.

Karnage stood there for a long moment, in the shadows of the ruins, mouth half-gaping. The destruction he once tried to rain down upon Cape Suzette with the lightning gun paled in comparison to such awesome devastation set before him.

"Did you see this?" a voice said from his right.

Karnage turned and exhaled sharply. Next to him lay a piece of a gigantic statue, a lion's head. On its side it was just taller than himself, sculpted from solid granite, and preserved in enough detail to make out the figure's braided mane, lordly frown, and bold, vigilant eyes that seemed alive, that one might expect them to blink at any moment.

Then Kit's head suddenly poked up from behind it. "Pretty neat, huh?"

"Get down from there before you _fall _down."

"Yes, mother." Instead of complying, Kit stood on his toes, taking a good look at their surroundings. "Wow... the stuff that must've been here."

"Blown to a thousand kingdoms coming," Karnage mused. He wasn't as much impressed about what once stood there as what it must have taken to bring it all down. After all, he could always use a few ideas to knock down a cliff gun or twelve.

While Kit and Karnage spoke, the little girl tuned the two out and studied the lion's sculpted face, tilting her head to the side to see it upright. The figure was vaguely familiar to her... perhaps someone she had seen in her thoughts or dreams... and not pleasant ones, either. She began to back away, as if realizing for the first time that she should not be there.

"... prob'ly earthquakes. A _big _one to do all this, I'd say."

"I would agree..." The thought crossed Karnage's mind that perhaps having his secret hideaway inside a volcano was not the most comforting thing in the world.

"Hey, where's the girl?" asked Kit.

Karnage checked his feet, surprised that she wasn't there waiting to be stepped on. He looked at Kit and shrugged. "She went vamoose!"

"Aw, great. Why'd she wander off all the sudden?" After taking a brief scan for her, Kit jumped off the statue and started off. "Come on, she's probably chasing a butterfly somewhere."

"Butterfly...?" Yet again, the captain noted how there were no bugs around, not even those pesky mosquitoes. As Kit walked one way, calling for the girl, Karnage went a different direction, not looking for her as much as to investigate his initial mystery; they were surrounded by the practically phantasmal remains of a doomed city, but that was not what made the area so creepy.

Here and there, molted feathers lay on the ground in sporadic patches, yet there were no signs of birds. And there was that same odd discoloration in the trees... he squinted to see their high boughs as he walked... it wasn't a fog... perhaps some type of material? He couldn't quite tell, but maybe if he found a way to climb-"_Oof_!"

He suddenly tripped head-over-heals and bit the dust... literally. He spat out the grime with an angry, feral growl... previous experiences with a certain young protege on his ship told him that he had just found the girl. She was sitting up behind him, blinking and dazed, wondering what just hit her. She had simply been walking along one of the ancient buildings, slowly, her eyes lowered in thought.

Karnage got up and glowered over her. "And _just _what do you have to say for yourself, you snotty sneak?"

She ducked her head down, knowing she was being scolded. "Rhama," she explained, her eyes full of utmost seriousness. "Eu... vi _Rhama_."

"That's _no _excuse!" Karnage barked. "_Whatever _you said."

She sighed and looked away, repeating in a whisper, "Rhama..."

"Oh, never mind." It was aggravating. Where was the point in chewing someone out when they didn't even know what you were yelling?

The old edifice they were nearest to remained half intact, with one wall broken into a slope, to which the stone blocks made a makeshift staircase into the trees. "Stay putting," he ordered the girl, pointing to a spot on the ground. She understood and complied, and watched him as he began climbing.

In another area, Kit continued his search for the cub. "Little girl! Where'd you _go_?"

He came to a broad stairway that led into an underground structure; warm air and the bitter smell of sulfur rose from underneath. It was a scent he knew well from living on Pirate Island; it was one smell he never missed, too.

"Yech... she didn't go down _there_, did she?" Kit took a few steps down, and bent over to see what was inside. "Hello?"

Faded glyphs were etched on the walls, divided by large cracks where tree roots had pushed through ages ago like wooden pythons. Puddles of steamy water seeped through the floor, turning the room into a viable sauna. There was not anything worthwhile to walk in for, except he spotted something incredibly strange toward the back... roundish, soft, white, at twice his own height and even wider than that, he swore it looked like the biggest marshmallow he had ever imagined...

On Karnage's part, he discovered that there _was _some sort of fabric in the trees... as he got closer, he began to see shreds of it softly floating in the breeze.

_'Rags?' _he thought, '_No, of course not... perhaps those gatos put nets in the trees...?'_

He reached the top of the wall and peeled back a branch-and shuddered at the ghastly sight. Skeletons and dried, shriveled corpses of unfortunate birds and monkeys were tangled in straggly clumps of silk, suspended in the branches like netherworldly fruit waiting to be plucked by the grim reaper. Then the realization struck him, sending a cold chill down his spine and a hard swallow down his throat-they stretched everywhere he could see, coating the leaves and branches in filmy gray-_spider webs._

There was something curiously beautiful about the object Kit stood before... it was no marshmallow, for sure. It was soft and white, like a cloud, and polished like a pearl. He gently caressed it with his fingertips... it was moist and stuck to him like wet cotton candy. "Ew, yuck..."

He pulled his hand away, tearing it open... hundreds of small black spiders suddenly spilled out on his hand and at his feet! He screamed and jumped back, shaking his arm as if it had caught on fire. Spiders were flung on the ceiling and walls, some into the water puddles... but more hatchlings oozed from the sac as its tear grew wider, hundreds upon thousands, spreading across the floor like a deadly, tingling oil spill.

Kit backpedaled in transfixed terror... from behind the sac crawled a horde of fist-sized tarantulas... more came in from the entrance, from the cracks in the wall, from anywhere and everywhere, crawling on the ceiling.

Kit _ran_. "Captaaaaaaaaaain!"

"Boy!" Karnage met him nearby, the little girl right behind him.

"We gotta get outta here!"

"So _nice _of you to _notice_!" Karnage threw his finger up at the vast canopy of branches overhead. More tarantulas, hundreds in number, were descending on their silky threads. The sky was falling in slow motion.

"What'll we do!"

"_Run_!" Karnage yelled. "A lot!"

Kit grabbed the girl by her arm and all three took off, retracing their path back from the way they came.

Karnage felt a *_thump_* pelt his head. He swiped at it as if he was trying to brain himself, splattering a gooey mess of green spider guts and hairy legs all over his forehead and hand. The spiders were jumping at them!

Up ahead was the wall and broken archway they had crossed before... they were almost there. But the spiders began to fall around them like living ash spewing from a furious, diabolical volcano, and they would not stop coming; from all sides, they were crawling blurs swarming on the ruins like a black shadow engulfing the jungle.

One landed on the little girl's shoulder. Karnage saw it and immediately swatted it off, but not before she let out a sharp cry. Kit had a tight grip on her arm; he was dragging her before he suddenly noticed she had stumbled. Every other step was accompanied by a sickening crunch that pricked his foot-he just couldn't look down. He slowed to help her get running again, but in his panic, he could not keep from moving. "Oh my gosh, what happened?"

"_**Move**_, boy! Go!"

"She's _hurt_! Help!"

"I am _seeing _that!" Karnage promptly snatched her up by her tunic and tucked her under his arm like a football, and beelined for the way out...

**

* * *

**The chaotic blend of animal chatter and birdcalls resounded to their ears like a chorus of heavenly angels, singing of their safety from a close brush with hell. Karnage's chest burned fiercely for air as he finally slowed, near the same stream they found the girl by. He had practically forgotten he had her in his arms, but her stifled whimpers soon reminded him that their bleak situation had not improved much.

"Is... is she okay?" Kit asked between gasps.

Karnage did not answer. He shook a little... maybe from the horror still fresh in his mind, maybe from anger, maybe both. He put the girl down, then snapped back towards Kit and roughly grabbed him by the collar, glaring at him eye-to-eye. "_Sense of adventure, _boy?"

"But I-I didn't know!"

"That's just _it_, you-! You-!" Just before he lost his head completely, Karnage pushed him aside and stormed away, leaving Kit to tend to the girl.

"I'm _sorry_," Kit said, but Karnage turned a deaf ear, kicking a fat, fallen branch into the water.

The little girl was in a lot of pain; she held her left shoulder, tears pouring down her cheeks. The spider had bit her squarely on the base of her neck. There was already an ugly lump swelling underneath her fur where the fangs had sank in.

"It's gonna be okay," said Kit. He led her to the stream and sat her down, then cupped some of the cold water in his hand and poured it over her wound... when he touched too close to it, even gently, she let out a blood-curdling "_rreeow_!" that made him jerk back. With her crying, he sat down beside her haplessly and miserably, having not a single idea what to do for her.

Karnage knelt down beside them with an aloe leaf in his hand. "Here, hold her still, boy." Then he looked at the girl sternly, "You bite me and I bite you back, _comprende_?"

He held the leaf over her wound, and squeezed out all the gel inside. The girl drew an intense breath as the drops touched down, grabbing onto Kit's arms tightly, but she had stopped crying. Kit didn't want to say anything, lest Karnage start to act like a crank again, but he thought that if the girl was feeling even a little better, it likely wasn't because the leaf was that soothing. It was not easy to explain how one could ever trust Don Karnage, but sometimes it made all the sense in the world.

"It's gotta hurt, but I think she'll be okay," said Kit. But something in Karnage's frown told him otherwise. Doubt. Like he knew something. "Uh... won't she?"

Karnage reached down and stretched his one remaining coattail out, and ripped it the tip off with his teeth.

Kit looked at him as if he had suddenly gone bonkers. "What are you _doing_?"

"Shush," Karnage replied. He dipped the cloth in the stream and applied it over the girl's shoulder. She squirmed, but allowed him to do it. "Now make use of your useless self and see that this stays on her like this."

"Yeah, good idea. And... thanks."

"Thanks nothing," he said. "You were doing everything all _wrong_, is all. And I am _sick _of hearing her snivel!"

"Right."

Karnage let them alone and sat down at the stream's bank, then collapsed altogether on his back.

After a moment, Kit turned to him, "I meant it, you know. You did good."

Karnage felt his cheeks warm. "Yes, well, don't get used to it. That is the _last _nice thing I am doing forever!"

**

* * *

**

Another hour had come and gone. The three had continued upstream again as they originally planned, but they did not get far before they took another rest. It was the little girl... she was able to keep up on her own for awhile, though stiffly, but the effects of the poison inside her were settling in. She was sweating a lot, and it was not from the warm air... she was also growing sleepy, every so often stumbling from her wooziness.

"I don't know what we're gonna do," Kit said, having her sit down against a tree. "She's getting sicker... maybe we better carry her. We'll make better time that way, too."

"_We_?" Karnage asked. "Which one of us is _we_?"

"Well... I was thinking the one who's the biggest and strongest."

"Ah! Well, when you think of it _that _way... _think again_."

"Aw, come on, will ya?"

"No. Your baggage, boy."

"Look, it makes more _sense _for you to do it."

"_No_."

"She's twenty pounds! She wouldn't slow you down at all!"

"I _said_-!" Karnage stopped suddenly and sniffed. "What is that _smell_?"

Kit covered his nose. "Yeah, I noticed that. I wasn't gonna say anything 'cause I thought it might've been those mangos getting to you."

"No, I already-*cough* _never mind _about the mangos!"

"It _is _pretty awful... smells like a dead gorilla bird." Kit followed the ugly scent a ways and rounded a bush. "Ew... _gross_."

"What is it?"

"Looks like a wild pig... or it _used _to be."

It was a boar's carcass, or more specifically, what was left of it. It was torn in half, with most of its flesh stripped from the bone, entrails left, lying in a patch of dirt moistened and stained from its own blood. It had not been dead for long. Black crows cawed overhead, perched in the trees and leering at what fleshy pieces still clung to the bones, but, oddly enough, they kept their distance from it.

"Looks like something had a nice ham dinner," Kit cringed. "Wonder how come those buzzards up there aren't chowin' down on what's left?"

They watched as one crow began to descend from branch to branch, cautiously, towards the carcass. Just as it got close, a low growling noise from nearby scared it back up to its high perch.

Alarmed, Kit and Karnage began to back away.

"H'okay... _that _I am not liking the sound of."

"Me neither. I'm beginning to think the birds have the right idea."

Only after a few steps, the ferns to their side began to shake, in a sequential rustle that proved something was running low on the ground, circling them. Kit and Karnage froze, only their eyes darting back and forth. Kit's heart pounded... he remembered that growl. It was another varan.

Then the jungle grew still again; the rustling had ceased. It only left them with the infernal terror that they were being watched... a stalker was waiting for them to make their move. Sweat falling from his brow, Karnage absently felt for his cutlass several times before he realized it was not there.

Kit backed up against him, looking from side to side. "Wh-where is it?"

"I don't know," Karnage replied. They kept their voices to a whisper. "Do _not _move."

Not moving was one thing Kit was having no trouble doing, except for his feet... they were getting antsy for flight. He glanced back at the little girl from a short distance; she had fallen asleep where she sat. "The girl... we gotta grab her and make a run for it."

Karnage, crouching down to scan the bushes from below, gritted his teeth. "I am _tired _of running, boy."

"You got any better ideas?"

"I am _thinking_, quiet."

Kit took a breath, gathering his mettle. "We can't just stand here..."

Though Karnage did not look at him, Kit could see anger shining in his eyes... far more anger than fright. He _did _hate having to run, and would have been happier to beat the creature's brains out instead. Kit thought the same, for that matter, but, having already been stared down by a varan, felt more compelled to swallow his pride and run for his life. "You saw one of these things... if we try to fight it, we're lizard food."

Karnage glanced at him slyly. "_One _of us, perhaps..."

"Maybe, but-wait, what?"

"Nothing. I am thinking with my mouth open, is all."

"Never mind, just listen for a minute. When I count to three, we'll make a quick break for it. I'll grab the girl and we'll leave this thing eating our dust. Agreed?"

Karnage nodded.

"Okay... one... two... _three_!"

Kit took off, but only got as far as a few paces before he realized he was running alone. "Hey! What are you standing there for?"

Karnage frowned, miffed at his tone. "What? You did not say _on _three!"

"What the heck did you _think _I meant!"

"One, two, three, and _then _run! You said _nothing _about one, two, and running on-!"

"Will you just get your tail in gear!"

"Boy, look out!"

Kit never saw it coming. In the blur of a split-second, the green of the fern beside him suddenly became a lunging maw of sharp teeth, coming right at his head, but then something broadsided him, hard. Before his eyes the world spun around; his footing was gone and he was flying, rolling, and skidding over the ground.

For a moment everything he heard and saw was but a haze; he came to with a piercing cry ringing in his ears. It was the little girl, screaming. Groggily, he sat up and looked back at what she was screaming at. "Wha'...? Holy propwash!"

Karnage had knocked Kit out of the way, only to be pounced on himself! He clenched his hands around the ghastly lizard's throat to keep it from chomping off his head, but it soon pushed and pinned him against a tree, its jaws snapping and inching toward his face. Karnage's arms were shaking, growing weaker. "I hate to be the needy nuisance, boy, but _**will you do something already!**_"

"Hold on! I'm coming!"

Mere inches from Karnage's nose, the varan let out a belch-sounding roar; its foul breath made his fur bristle. "Quick-_ly_," he grunted, practically turning green.

Kit picked up a large rock nearby and, with a running start, bashed it into the side of the beast's skull, but only stunning it. Kit wound back and struck it again, this time forcing it to roll off Karnage, who gasped for air.

Kit grabbed him by the hand to help him stand. "Are you okay?"

"Of course," he coughed. "Who _doesn't _like staring at lizard tonsils!"

Just as they darted toward the little girl, a second varan suddenly sprang from the bushes, blocking their way. They skidded to an abrupt halt.

"Cripes, there's _two _of them!"

Behind them, the first lizard was beginning to collect itself, squirming back on its stomach. The second varan stepped towards them, glancing to and fro at either one as if deciding who to attack. Then it stopped... and turned toward the little girl. She screamed again, and tried to claw her way up the tree she was near, but her aching shoulder and grogginess made her slip off and she fell on her back. The creature began trotting towards her.

"The girl!" Kit cried. "No!"

"Oh no you don't!" Karnage made a diving lunge at the beast, grabbing it by its tail with both arms. The creature roared, spun, rolled, and thrashed itself about, sending the pirate for a ride of the likes of being tied to a propeller! "_I haaaaaate lizaaaaards_!"

Not long after Kit had the chance to grab the cub, the creature was finally able to fling Karnage off, sending him flying over their heads. He hit the ground with a most ungraceful tumble into a thick fern.

"Captain!" Kit held onto the girl and rushed over. "Are you all right?"

"M'fne," his muffled voice groaned from inside the plant. He poked his head out and spat away leaves from his mouth. "_Why _did you let me do that?"

"_I _don't know!"

Anxiously, the little girl tugged on Kit's arm as she saw the two lizards starting to stalk them. "Dra-dragaos!" she cried. It wasn't a hard translation, she called them dragons, and presently the name struck Kit and Karnage as terribly appropriate.

"They're coming! We gotta pull chocks _now_!"

"Well do not be standing there like lumps sitting on a dog! _Move it_!"

"C'mon, kid! Up!" Kit lifted the girl and sped off while trying to put her over his shoulder.

Karnage pushed himself out of the fern and caught up with the two cubs, taking a quick second to hurl a stone at one of the varans. "Take _that_, you-!" To his chagrin, the beast caught it in its mouth without losing a beat. "-never mind!"

Stumbling as he ran, Kit was wearing out fast with the girl on his shoulder. Karnage was right at his heels, urging him to speed up. "Faster, boy!"

"I-I can't!" he grunted.

"Oh, _give _her to me, you slow-poking sloth!"

Karnage grabbed the girl with one arm and with the other gave Kit a heavy shove forward.

Atronador varans ran close to the ground, like snakes with legs. Amidst the thick jungle, it was easy not to see them, but you could hear them, cutting through bushes, plowing through branches, and breathing... they panted through their mouths, louder and louder the more they ran.

"Hey!" Kit glanced to his side, and suddenly cut to his left. "Let's lose 'em here!" He led them to a cliff that dropped down into a murky swamp.

"What are you doing, boy?"

"Come on, jump in! I bet those things can't swim!"

"What, swim...?" After just a quick scan of the swamp, Karnage realized something terribly wrong. "_No_, boy, don't-!"

Kit took a step back for a boost, and leapt-but was suddenly snagged mid-leap by the collar by Karnage, who yanked him back behind him.

"Ack!" he coughed, holding his throat. "That hurt! What's the idea?"

"You do _not _jump in that water!" yelled Karnage.

"Why _not_? They're coming!"

The little girl, looking over his shoulder, tugged on Karnage's ear and pointed behind them. The sounds were getting nearer... the shaking in the foliage was drawing closer, faster.

She clamped onto his arm and shoulder with all fours, digging her nails into his shirt.

"Ow! Watch the _claws_, girl!" yelped Karnage. "_The claws_!" He reached up to grab a vine that hung from an overhead tree. "Here, hold onto this" he said, handing it to Kit. "When I tell you, jump! But _don't let go_!"

"Wha'? Oh, right, _much _better plan. Let's go swinging on vines!"

"For once in your life, do as I say!"

"But-!"

Karnage clamped his fingers over Kit's mouth. "Shut up and _trust _me, will you?"

Kit was about to utter another protest, but nodded instead.

The varans snaked out from around the trees, slowing as they came into view, then stopping, watching them. They seemed to realize their prey were stuck at a dead end, and afraid. The scariest part was, in their leery gazes, they seemed to enjoy it.

Karnage pulled down a second vine for himself, and wrapped it around his free hand. He didn't have to worry about holding onto the girl... she couldn't have been scraped off his arm with a spatula.

Kit backed up to the very edge of the cliff, knocking loose leaves and dirt into the cloudy green water below. "What now?"

"Wait," Karnage said.

"For _what_?"

"For them to pounce!"

"_That's _your plan?"

The larger of the two lizards belted out another roar, and both began charging.

"They're coming! We gotta jump!" cried Kit.

"Wait for it, boy..." said Karnage.

"We don't have time!"

"Now! _Swing_!"

As they leapt, the varans lunged after them, snapping their jaws at their feet. The beasts stumbled off the edge and belly-flopped into the water.

"It worked!" said Kit.

"Of course it did! _I _thought of it, no? Now swing back to the edge! Hurry!"

Though Kit and Karnage had dodged them for the moment, they were now dangling over the swamp like worms on hooks. Trembling, the little girl stared at the giant reptiles splashing around below. Then one of them looked up, locking eyes with her. She gasped and shot up to Karnage's shoulder, wrapping her arms around his head.

"Girl! Stop that! I can't see!"

"Don't let her fall-hey!" One of the varans suddenly sprang up and bit onto the end of Kit's vine, jerking it widely around before it fell back in the water. Kit went spinning in circles. "Whoooah!"

Karnage, meanwhile, was having to _wrestle _the little girl off his face. "Let-_go!_"

He finally pushed her away, but she lost her balance and rolled down his back, shrieking. With his free hand, he snatched her by the ankle just in time. She grabbed onto his pant leg, with more fierce a grip than ever before.

"_Yeeeow_! The _claws_, girl! Mercy with the claws!"

"Was _all this _part of your plan too?" grunted Kit.

"Yes!" Karnage spat angrily. "So there!"

Suddenly their was a great commotion below... the varans were yelping, writhing around in the water, which had begun to churn violently.

"Holy cow, what's going on?" Kit shouted.

It was all a graphic blur white splashes, twisting varan bodies, and scores of tiny teeth, fins, and fish tails thrashing amidst pooling red blood.

"Hold tight, boy!" yelled Karnage. He began to rock back and forth until he had enough momentum to swing back onto the cliff. He let go and tumbled to the ground, the little girl tumbling right along with him.

"I... need... a vacation," he moaned. He sat up, and with a relieved '_yip!'_ literally plucked the girl's hands from his leg.

She was breathing hard, and coughing so much she was practically suffocating herself.

Karnage patted her back. "Hey, no! You are safe now! So... _stop that_!"

She sank limply into his arms, which put him in a most awkward situation. "No no no, you stay _awake_, or else! Boy, get over her and take the girl!" Then he realized, Kit wasn't with them. "Boy?"

Kit still clung onto his vine, stilly watching the chaos in the water. He looked scared out of his wits. The varans were, by now, torn into several pieces, with the swamp water darkened by their blood throughout. The remains of their scaly, green corpses wiggled from underneath as piranhas devoured them from the inside out.

"_Boy_!"

Kit snapped out of it and looked up at them.

"Get over here this minu-_ette_!" ordered Karnage.

Kit took another glance down, squeezing onto the vine with a cramping, vice-like grip. To think that would have been _him _down there... But then he thought of the little girl; she looked as if she were in trouble. With a breath and a hard swallow, he began rocking on vine and eventually swung back to the cliff.

"What-is she okay?" he asked.

"She needs water," Karnage said.

"Come on, we better get her back to the stream." Kit reached for her, but was distracted at the sounds of the splashing behind them.

"_Ignore _it, will you?" said Karnage. "They cannot hurt you from here."

"Sorry." Kit tried to shrug it off as he reached for the girl again. "Um... thanks for not letting me jump in there. I never even thought-how did _you _know?"

Karnage could have mentioned the tell-tale danger that Kit never noticed-old bones strewn against the swamp's reeds. Instead, he said, "Please, boy. Never ever question the always clever!"

**

* * *

**

The sun was dragging about slowly across the sky that day, so it seemed; at least, slower than it had been. After giving the little girl cool water from the stream, they again followed it upward, stopping frequently for more drink for her. By their surroundings, tree after tree, bush after bush, rock after rock, it was hard to tell if they were even gaining ground or just moving in big circles. Still, they pressed on.

Kit walked a ways ahead of the other two now, although, not exactly by his own choosing. When he glanced back and didn't see Karnage, as if he was trying to hide, he grew frustrated. "Will you knock that off?"

"No!" Karnage's voice retorted from behind.

"Look, I _told _you, no one's ever gonna know. My lips are sealed! I promise!"

"They better be," Karnage grumbled. He stepped out into view, very reluctantly carrying the little girl on his shoulders. There was a big wet area around his chest and sleeve where he apparently rinsed himself recently. "For _this _I became a pirate!"

It had not been pleasant being so close to a child so ill, for him _or _the girl. She was asleep now, but not long before, she had suddenly threw up on his coat, and he mindlessly dropped her out of shock and disgust. Fortunately, she wasn't hurt; Kit's head broke her fall.

"Hey, I think I hear something," said Kit. He stopped and listened, then jumped on a nearby rock to see if he could notice anything.

"Like what?"

Amidst all the birds chirping, breezes, and other familiar noises of the jungle, he thought he heard voices. Faint, shouting voices, like people calling out a name. "Oh my gosh, I think we're getting close! This way! Come on, hurry!"

Kit bolted off the rock and ran through the foliage, hollering: "Over here!"

Karnage quickened his pace and followed. He girl was getting jostled around like a bumpy carriage ride, but still she was sound asleep.

Then, as far as Kit was concerned at the moment, there was the most welcome sight he had seen in a long time: a group of Felocian natives who were searching for the girl. They were five men: two tigers, one lion, and two panthers, dressed in leather leggings and beaded jewelry around their necks. Three carried spears, the lion and one of the panthers carried bows and arrows. It was apparent by the look on their faces that to see a foreign boy approaching them was most surprising.

"Oh man, am I glad to see _you _guys!" Kit panted. Then with one big breath: "Listen! We've been lost for days and we found your little girl and she got bit by a spider and she's really sick and she needs help now!"

They were all speechless, looking at each other with much confusion.

Then Karnage came around, with the girl. One of the tiger's face lit up like the sun, and he instantly dropped his spear and ran toward them. Karnage recoiled, not knowing _what _the native was about to do. But the Felocian hardly even looked at him as he lifted his daughter up and cupped her in his arms.

The others drew around, talking at once. After kissing the girl many times, the tiger examined the lump at the base of her neck, with a worried frown. The others looked at Kit and Karnage, and waited for them to say something.

"It was a spider," Kit tried to explain. He made various spider-like hand gestures to help. "Big ugly thing with lotsa legs..."

"And fangs!" Karnage added.

"Yeah." Kit pointed to his neck with two fingers to demonstrate that she had been bitten.

The group seemed to understand what the two were saying, and after a few brief words among each other, the father and three others rushed off in the opposite direction with the little girl. The lion, who was the only one left, looked at the two foreigners and smiled. He placed his hand on Karnage's shoulder, bowing his head slightly, and began speaking in a tongue they did not understand, though through their language barrier it still seemed like a good sign. Then he gestured for them to follow him.

**

* * *

**

Soon they were at the threshold of a Felocian village, much larger than the one Kit and Baloo had previously visited some days before. It was built upon a hill, with shelters stringing around the shallow slopes in circles. Unlike Pigmees or other cultures that lived in such forested and forgotten territories, Felocians were not nomads. Though they had simple dwellings, most would not be what one would consider a 'hut'; some were made of logs, others of stone and mortar; homes at the base of hill were raised on stilts of split tree trunks. For an environment as unpredictable as a roulette wheel, they were built with the intention of staying put for a long time.

The most noticeable part about the village was that the whole place seemed to be in an uproar, with everyone gathering around a particular cabin. The lion that had guided them gestured for them to stay put for a moment, then he rushed into the crowd.

The lion came back out with another person, who looked remarkably "modern" for a Felocian native. He was a cougar, donning glasses with pre-mature wrinkles under his eyes, a faded pair of navy-blue trousers, and a necklace made of varan teeth hung around his bare chest. The lion pointed to Kit and Karnage and went back into the crowd, and the cougar approached them, studying them as he came. "Hello," he said.

"You speak English?" asked Kit.

"I am Rupo. And you are...?"

"Uh, my name's Kit," he replied. It was surprising, if not relieving, that this person not only spoke English, but was able to speak it well. "And this is my, uh... my..." He hesitated.

"_I_ am Don Kar_rr_nage," said the captain. Although in all his weariness and tattered appearance, his rolling r's did not exactly lend him the kind of flare he would have preferred.

"I see." Rupo shoved his glasses up closer to his eyes. "You must, uh, please forgive me if I seem surprised. We seldom see many foreigners who look like... well..." He was looking at Karnage and his torn attire, but he caught himself before he said anything rude and turned to Kit. "Well, we certainly do not see many foreign _children_. You are not explorers, are you?"

"No," Kit said.

"Yes!" Karnage answered, at the same time. He glared down at Kit. "Why _else _would we be around here?"

"Oh... uh, yeah."

Just then, a plump tigress woman ran up to Karnage and, completely to his surprise, hugged him-more like _squeezed _him-so tight his feet left the ground and he couldn't breath.

"Madam!" Karnage choked. "Control *_cough_* yourself!"

She let him go and grabbed Kit by his face, planting a big kiss right between his eyes. He took a step backwards and blushed. "Gosh..."

The woman was weeping, but with tears of mirth. Her smile was weary, bearing the stress of a long, sleepless night, but there was a glow about her that shown of great grace. She clasped her hands together and spoke to them excitedly, then ducked back into the crowd.

"What was that all about?" Kit asked.

"That was Tinka's mother," replied Rupo. "She says her daughter will heal, and thanks you for saving her life."

"Tinka?"

"The little one you brought home."

"Tinka?" Karnage muttered. "Even her _name _is annoy-" Kit abruptly elbowed him in ribs. "_*oof*_ I mean, _Tinka_, yes. Very cute."

"Is she going to be all right?" asked Kit.

"I am sure," Rupo said. "The bite of the tree tarantula is dangerous, but we have the correct medicines." He tipped his head back at the scene behind them. "She is being treated now, and as you can see, we are all excited to see her back. We feared the worst for her."

The nearby villagers soon began to gather around the two strangers, and they all seemed quite delighted.

"Tell me, are you lost?" Rupo asked. It was more of a rhetorical question, given their ragged appearance.

"Well, ehm... perhaps a _little_," said Karnage.

"More like a _lot_," Kit corrected, prompting an indignant snort from his companion.

"Well, I think you are very welcome here," Rupo grinned. "Come, you look tired and hungry. You will be our guests, and we will help you!"

* * *

If there was one thing true about the Felocian natives, despite their modest lifestyle, they knew how to have a good time. They liked to eat together (plentifully), sing, and dance. They were simple pleasures, no doubt some that many in the more modern world might find uneventful, but unlike the folk of the big cities, the entire village was like one large family, and all enjoyed spending time with one another, simply for the sake of being together. They were a pleasant kind, efficient and self-sustaining, who had little to distrust in their lives but the natural dangers of the jungle.

Evening had faded into night with much music playing. Kit and Karnage had been well fed throughout the day, and their clothes had been washed for them earlier on. For the night, they were draped in warm woolen blankets and leis of bright yellow and orange flowers.

There was a big bonfire in the center of the village that everyone was gathered around, and hot food was served left and right. Kit and Karnage sat on a wide, cushy rug and next to Rupo, eating a dish of roasted chicken and mango. Karnage just had chicken.

They did not volunteer information about themselves. For all the Felocians knew, they were explorers from "the cities" who became lost during the last rainstorm. Even if the villagers had no clue as to what a sky pirate was, after facing such tough conditions in the jungle, Don Karnage was more than ready to accept a little hospitality and had no intention of having them knowing the truth of who he was. Kit did not want the matter to jeopardize their stay, either, so he was content to go along with the ruse.

Tinka's father walked up to them, carrying his daughter wrapped in a blanket. She was awake, although her eyes were still red and heavy; she would need much rest yet. She purred, warm and happy, knowing she was safe and at home.

Her father spoke something to Rupo, and knelt down next to Kit and Karnage, sitting the girl up on his knee.

"I think she has something to say," Rupo told them.

Kit smiled at her. "See? I told ya you'd be okay."

She smiled back, and then looked at Karnage. And _kept _looking at him.

"_Well_?" he asked impatiently.

She reached out and grabbed his nose.

While Kit laughed, Karnage pushed her hand away and groaned. "Yes, you are welcome."

Moments later, when Karnage wasn't looking, Rupo leaned over and said quietly, "Might I ask you a personal question, friend?"

"Sure, I guess."

"Is he your father?"

Kit eyebrows shot up wide open; if he had food in his mouth at the moment, he just might have choked. "_Him_? Does he _look _like my father?"

Rupo nodded and smiled. "Not to me, so I am thankful."

"Why?"

"For a moment I thought I needed new glasses," he laughed. When he thought about it, Kit couldn't help but laugh with him.

"What is so funny?" Karnage asked.

Kit shook his head and took another bite of chicken. "Nothin', Pa."

Next came an elderly lion to approach them, a smile cracking the deep wrinkles in his face, and though his aging body hobbled slowly with a walking staff, his gray eyes danced with a vigorous spirit. He raised his hand over Kit and Karnage and spoke lengthily, then broke into a chant, while the two watched in awkward silence until the old man was through and left them.

"That is our elder," said Rupo. "He is most wise, and well learned in the way of the shaman. He said that he prays Seren will bless you and make you walk unharmed through her people's land."

Rupo, as they learned, was an interpreter and mediator between the villagers and "the cities", a term he used for the world at large outside of old Felocian. He was born in the village, but had a craving for adventure and spent much of his early adulthood traveling the world, learning different languages and gaining an apt sense of other cultures, interests, and sciences, knowledge he now used to benefit his village when needed. He still traveled every once in a while to the towns outside the jungle, mostly to barter Felocian crafts for industrial goods, special foods, odd curios, and medicines (including the anti-venom given to the little girl). Traveling explorers, historians, and archeologists often found him quite useful when overcoming the language barriers, for the Felocians had far more a wealth of knowledge the jungle, its terrain and history, than any textbook published elsewhere.

While they ate, Kit was explaining to him about the ruins they came across earlier that day. "There was this awesome statue, too, of a guy's head. It was huge! Have you seen that before?"

Oddly, Rupo looked away, seemingly not interested in discussing the statue. "I have lived in this land for forty-five years... there is not much I have _not _seen."

"It was Rhama, wasn't it? Your old king?"

"_Our _old king?" the cougar retorted, apparently offended. A few villagers within earshot, hearing his tone, suddenly stopped what they were doing and turned to look to see if anything was wrong. Kit was deeply embarrassed, but not at all sure of what he said to anger him.

Rupo spoke something to the villagers and they carried on with their merriment.

"I'm sorry, I guess," Kit said. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, I apologize. But we do not think well of such things here. Now that you have mentioned it, though, I _am _curious..." He bent down and gestured for Kit to come close, and said quietly in his ear, "Where has a foreigner so young heard of... 'our old king'?"

Kit looked back at Karnage, as if wanting him answer the question, but all Karnage had been paying attention to was his food and the people dancing around the bonfire... particularly one beautiful young lioness who he was _certain _couldn't take her eyes off him.

"Well... I've heard about him from someone else... someone who knows."

"I see," Rupo replied solemnly. He glanced at Karnage, then sat up straight again, sighing. "Why else would you be here."

Kit set his plate down, sensing something was wrong.

"Please, I must be honest," Rupo said. None of the other Felocians spoke English, so he spoke freely without worry a scene would be made. "We are grateful to you for saving one of our daughters, and for that, you are our friends. But only a fool would believe a young boy and a man dressed in a fancy blue coat are explorers. _Lost_, yes. Explorers, never."

Kit started. "Oh, well... uh, you see... _he _can explain it better than I can." He meant Karnage, of course, who was still oblivious to the conversation. Kit poked him hard in the arm to get his attention.

"Ow! What?"

"Will you _answer _him already?"

Rupo stood up. "I think it would be best if I had a talk with you both. Please, come with me."

He led them to his one-room cabin, and as he did, Kit briefly explained to Karnage what had just happened.

From the inside, Rupo's home was quite different from other Felocian dwellings; books were stacked along every wall-old novels, atlases, even classical mythologies and Shakesbear plays. A framed doctoral degree hung crooked by a nail beside a large map of Alpacatan spread over the wall. Some book stacks were acting as makeshift furniture stands, where other items like clocks, radios, clothes, and board games were placed; all things he had collected from around the world. He had wicker chairs circled around a card table, where they all sat.

"You are in no danger here, as long as you are not a danger to us," the couger began bluntly. "But I am worried that you are a great danger to your own selves. Just to look at you, you are lucky to have survived _this _long in this jungle! I do not know how you were lost, or who you are, or who you would _pretend _to be... but I _do _know only the horribly _ignorant _would dare venture into this land as unprepared."

Kit sank in his seat, growing ashamed. This was as bad as the time he got lectured by Baloo for staying out past midnight without telling anyone. Karnage, on the other hand, sat forward and glared at Rupo, as if ready to go toe-to-toe at any moment. He did not particularly like being called ignorant.

Rupo continued, "I wonder what reason would be so imporant that you would come so far in the first place."

Silence fell in the room as he waited for an answer. Kit wasn't about to speak up; he inwardly urged Karnage to say something, but all the wolf did was tap his claws on the table sternly, keeping unblinking, defiant eyes locked with Rupo's.

"Have you something to say?" said the cougar. The two looked almost ready to get up and go to blows. "Tell me, has it anything to do with _Rhamastan_, perhaps?"

"How did you know that?" Kit wondered aloud.

"Let me tell _you _something, gato," Karnage snarled. "If it were not for our _horribly ignorant _selves, that troublesome little girl would be _dead _now!"

At that, Rupo slowly backed down. "Yes, I know. But-"

Karnage wasn't finished: "_And_, further-more-so, _you _owe _us_! And that is all! We have _nothing _to explain. You just get us out of this lizard-ridden place of ill-repution, and we all forget _any _of this ever happened."

"Calm down," Kit hissed at him.

"No, I understand," Rupo replied, finally easing back in his chair. "And I _will _guide you far away from this place, back to your world."

"I don't understand," Kit said. "We didn't say anything about Rhamastan... how did you know?"

"There are few people who would brave the deep jungle to dig up bone and statues... or study old ruins for the sake of learning. You think you are the only ones to come searching for the lost city? I meet several each year... people who know nothing _true _about what they seek. They hear tales of riches, shining white stones, and hidden golden cities, and that is enough for them.

"Many times they come with pieces of paper that they claim is a map said to tell where the gates of Rhamastan are... they had only bought them from con artists at the marketplace. It is hard to reason with them... in truth, even the authentic scrolls found lead to nothing more than horrific traps. Such was part of Rhama's design. It is hard for them to believe! I tell you, honestly, it saddens me. They will never find anything, and they never leave this land alive. And now, here comes along a mere _child_, who would share their fate! How _should _I feel about that?"

"Uno momento," Karnage cut in. "This _mere child_ has spent more time on treasure hunts than... than... than he has spent at school!"

"Uh, thanks... I think," Kit replied.

"Then perhaps it's all the more reason to fear for you," said the cougar. "I do not want to argue... only to save you. Curse Rhama, but he was no fool... to think he has been dead thousands of years and still causes misery."

Kit and Karnage looked at each other, in a way which they silently conferred with one another about what exactly Rupo knew about the fabled golden city.

Kit turned back to him and asked, "Then... you _know _it's real? Rhamastan's really here somewhere?"

Rupo rubbed his brow, shaking his head wearily. Then he got out of his chair and walked over to a map hanging on his wall. "Listen to me, and do not concern yourself over it. I could speak many words about how Rhamastan is but a death trap, and should you even to dream of stumbling upon it by some cosmic chance... I mean no offense when I tell you that it is most certain you would be eaten by varans long before then. So, please, if we may move forward, we have much to do tomorrow morning." He pointed to a dot on the map near the coast of Alpacatan. "I will guide you as far as this town, Tresierras. From there, you may get transportation to the big city, and I trust you will be able to contact whomever you must to take you to your home."

Rupo looked back to see if his guests were listening... they weren't, only whispering amongst themselves. Rupo cleared his throat to give them a hint.

"Sorry," Kit said, "It's just... even if we're going back home, we've come so far already. Can't you tell us why you guys are so... well..."

"Up-tighter than shrunk underwear," Karnage offered.

"Well, why so upset about it?" asked Kit. "And why do you 'curse the name of Rhama'? Wasn't he a big part of your history?"

"Our history," Rupo said quietly, as if to himself. He sat down in his chair again. "No one heeds our history but us. Would you be any different? You know, there are eleven tribes left in old Felocia, scattered through the jungle and mountains. Since the days of our ancestors who were there to witness it, the account of the fall of Felocia has been passed down from generation to generation, father to son, mother to daughter, through words alone, never written. All eleven tribes hold the same account to this day, word for word, of how the last king brought his people to demise for his own greed and pride. It is more than a story, but something felt in our very spirit.

"The king Rhama raised a military... his army conquered the jungle, dominated the beasts like champions and protected the people from outside invaders... in _myth_. In reality, they marauded through the land, assimilated village after village, charging who they would as forced labor to build his cities. The ruins you saw earlier today were of the watchtower of Sin Rha'Utek. Once a scribe had described the citadel being so magnificent that its towers stood tall as the mountains, and its walls shined like the white moon... but the ground was stained red from the enslaved builders.

"At the end, he engineered his own kingdom's suicide, starting a war for war's sake and sacrificing his subjects' lives by the hundreds of thousands. My people treasure the height our ancestor's reached, and would again grow our numbers and rebuild the kingdom, but that hope is dim. We have no honor for Rhama. His memory is a fireside tale children tell to frighten each other. He was no more than a wretched devil, who ruled by slavery and terror, who deceived people to believe he was a very god! I do not doubt he believed this claim himself... he _was _brilliant in what he schemed. No ordinary person would have realized such a place as Rhamastan..."

"Then you know it's here, somewhere?" Kit asked.

"I dare say I know more of the legend of Rhamastan than any book or report written in your land. I know of the shining stone, and of the gold. But I do not know where it is at, that is the truth. As I said, our history was passed down by word of mouth, and it's location was erased from this tradition long ago, so that it would stay lost forever."

"But... why? The king may have been a big creep, but he's _dead _now. He doesn't _deserve _to keep all his treasure hidden."

Rupo's green eyes flickered like a dancing flame. "You speak of treasure. Do you know for certain what lies beneath these mountains?"

"Well..."

Rupo didn't wait for an answer before he turned to Karange. "Do _you_, sir?"

"Ehm, well... I _might_," Karnage replied. In truth, he was as clueless as Kit, but there was no reason to admit that.

"No, Rhamastan is a tomb, nothing more," Rupo said quietly. "Before Rhama it was known simply as the Ancient Cave, a sacred grave of their forefathers. It is _death_ there, do listen to me. It is lost in translation, I know, but we of this land have always felt this truth in our hearts with urgency and sincerity. Rest assured that wherever it is, whatever is inside, it was conjured by an evil mind, and among other things you must consider that he must have foreseen that many might try to trespass. So, I would implore you, seek your fancies of treasure elsewhere."

After a pause, as to change the subject altogether, Rupo pointed to one of his clocks sitting on a copy of _Oliver's Twists_. "The time is late. The village will be quieting soon, and we three have a long day ahead of us." Then he smiled, "Four days lost in the jungle. I should guess you are anxious to see your loved ones again."

"Well _I_ for one am just giddy with goose-humps," Karnage drawled. He tipped a glance at Kit, who deliberately avoided his eye contact at that moment.

**

* * *

**

Kit and Karnage were accommodated their own cabin to sleep. It was just one small room with nothing in it but a black wood-burning stove, an oil lamp, and two hammocks, one hung above the other like bunk beds; they had blankets already on them, waiting to be unfolded.

"I get the top!" Kit called, and started to make a reach for it, but Karnage apparently had other plans, as he pulled him away.

"_I _think not. Besides, you are _used _to being closest to the ground."

"Come on, I bet you can't even get up there without falling out."

"Oh no?"

To Kit's chagrin, Karnage jumped right into the middle of the top hammock and, without any sort of hassle, fell limply and snugly into its cradling curve. Like most of the materials the Felocians crafted, the hammocks were made for comfort; their fabric was soft, thick, and cushy, and stretched to compensate loungers of varying shapes and sizes.

"No one likes a show off," Kit frowned. He was even less enthused when he saw that the sagging bottom of the top hammock left him little comfort room to sleep under. Still, it was unspeakably better than braving another night in the open wilderness.

Kit climbed into the bottom hammock, inadvertently brushing his head against Karnage's underside. He let out a small, complaintive groan, but fell into the hammock just as quickly and comfortably as Karnage did. As he got settled, he looked up to a view that wasn't exceedingly pleasant. "Gee, isn't this swell."

"Shut up and go to sleep, boy."

"Just do me a favor and remember not to roll over. I don't have room for you down here."

"Bo-oy..."

"Yeah yeah. G'night."

Karnage mumbled something as he yawned... which, for him, was close enough to saying 'good night' back.

They laid there, in the soft glow of the oil lamp, listening to the lull of the crickets and frogs outside. By now, all the village were in their own homes, preparing for sleep. And as far as Karnage was concerned, after all they had put up with, sleep seemed like a very, _very _pleasant idea...

"Captain?"

... until Kit spoke up again.

"Grmm... what is it?"

"I still want to find it."

Karnage groaned, annoyed. "I told you before,_ I _do not know where it is. Go look for it yourself if you have to!"

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"Their 'toiletries.' What are _you _talking about?"

"The gold!"

"Oh."

"We're so close, I just know it... _too _close. All we've got to show after four stinkin' days knocking our brains out are mosquito bites and holes in our clothes. I've got plenty of music to face when I get home as it is... I don't want to go back empty-handed."

"Boy..."

"Do _you_?"

"No, of course not. But we have no map anymore."

"Yeah, that's true." But then, something dawned on Kit. "Wait a minute, yes we do!"

"We _do_? Where?"

"Remember, when you stole that gold case, there was a map of the country with it, and they already had the location marked on it! I still remember the directions it had from the city!"

"But _that _is on the Iron Vulture."

"I know, but Rupo's got the exact same map hanging on his wall!"

Karnage leaned over on his elbow, peering down over his hammock at the boy. "And you can find the latitudeness?"

"_And _longitudeness," Kit chuckled. With no small hint of pride, he recited what he heard Bagheera utter privately to Tyler: "Due east, about forty miles, inside of a canyon. We get that map, and we're back in business! So, whaddaya say? We still in this thing?"

"Well _I_ have heard no fat ladies singing," Karnage replied. Then he paused, thinking. "But it's useless, for now. The gato was right... we _are _unprepared."

"Yeah, you're right. So what are we gonna do?"

"We let him take us to the city, and then we _get _what we need."

"Yeah, but we got no money." Then Kit realized what a dumb and pointless statement that was to make to the world's most infamous crook. "You're gonna steal stuff, aren't you."

He heard Karnage clasp his hands in delight. "Oh, my boy, _we _are going to have a pirate's field day! Yes-no?"


	9. The golden citadel

**Chapter 9**

**The golden citadel**

Deep within the jungle, at the foot of the Atronador Heights, there was a certain area where mountains had parted, snapped apart as it were, and a deep rift forged over the ages. _La Barranca del Arco Iris_, as it was labeled by what few Alpacatan cartographers had seen it: Rainbow Canyon. It was so called because of several waterfalls that dropped down over its jagged sides, lifting a cloud of mist from the bottom that in the afternoon cast an array of colors into the air.

A river knifed through its narrow base, from where the canyon walls were nearly vertical, rising thousands of feet, and populated along its crevices by thousands of birds and their nests. Discovered only in recent years with airplane flyovers, the shadowy canyon offered no safe passage through itself, and over risk of life and limb it was left unexplored. And unbeknownst to the birds, they were, for millennia, the only eyes to have looked closely upon the canyon's secret.

From the map Bagheera had scribbled upon, and from the information collected from the Gatekeeper's tomb, it was where 'X' had marked the spot.

Jesse Richter had one fortunate thing about being accompanied by Shere Khan's pilots. Worthless as they were to him, they had happened upon the tome dropped by Kit and Karnage in mid air as they plunged from the Iron Vulture. What time Richter had spent years prior learning to read the ancient Felocian language had at once richly paid for itself.

With the relic in his own hands, and no further sign of the pirates, he decided that chasing down Don Karnage could be put aside, and the pirates no longer mattered to him; for the time being-standing on the verge of a discovery he had been waiting a long time to achieve-neither did his employer.

After losing the pirates' trail, Richter made fast tracks and caught up with Colonels Jackson and Taylor before they had even reached Alpatico City; from there, the pilots had a difficult time keeping up with the grizzly's pace all the way to town, where they had gotten another plane and resupplied. Once back in the jungle, Richter parachuted onto a plateau overlooking the canyon, alone, having told the pilots he would see them back in town when he was finished. Inside a large backpack he had supplies to last him a week, and no one to slow him down.

He secured a repelling device at the plateue's edge. Kneeling over to peer at the bottom, he considered how appropriate the canyon was as the roadway to Rhamastan, the sheer cliffs making it easy to defend and nearly impossible to fit an invading army. He long knew the canyon was there; he could have kicked himself for not imagining what it was before. When he dropped his rope over the ledge, he could not see it half way down over the mist.

He slid down the cliff with more caution than he would rather use, planting each step slowly and carefully. The mesmerizing roar of the waterfalls, and the screeching and fluttering birds everywhere made it difficult to stay focused, while the jutting shards of rock that he scraped over made concentration a must. It did not take long for his fatigues to shred at the knees; by the time he had reached bottom, his hands and knees were bloodied.

He trekked over a river bank made of crushed rock and climbed over clumps of jagged boulders. The canyon tapered ever the more narrow until the sides met at the end, and there, under a rainbow, shrouded in mist, was the mouth of a cave. It was tall and narrow, carved by ancient craftsmen with straight sides and a pointed arch. Richer readied his flashlight began to laugh, dreaming of the fortune and fame that waited ahead as soon as he cast light on the shadows of the cave. The gates of Rhamastan would be there.

Would they be gigantic? Would they be golden? Actually, stepping into the dark threshold, he was in for more of a surprise than he imagined...

"Borden?"

They were caught unaware amongst their camping and excavating equipment, Bagheera writing in his journal, Myra thoughtfully studying their surroundings, and Tyler sitting on a duffle bag, chin in palm and deep in problem-solving contemplation. Tyler and Bagheera jumped to their feet. "Jesse! How did _you _get here?"

"How did _you _get here?" demanded Richter.

There was many a scandalized glance traded among the three, but then Richter looked over their heads. There was an iron wall, rusted and scarred so heavily that it much resembled the rough texture of the rocky walls that made the cave. It appeared pieced together sheet by sheet, shoddily. There were shallow, unfinished tunnels burrowed into the cave next to it. The ground before the iron wall was curiously different; while the rest of the cave was solid rock, the ground was made of broken down rubble, not strewn but packed as if filling a pit.

Myra adjusted her glasses, looking Richter over from head to toe. "That's the one working for Khan?" she whispered to Tyler.

Richter let his backpack fall to the ground, his flashlight held only loosely at his fingertips. He seemed to momentarily forget about the others standing with him, and gazed at the iron wall with much puzzlement, if even disappointment. "This... it?"

"Well, it is what it is," sighed Bagheera. "And it's no gate. It's bloody tattooed to the cave. There are no latches, no hinges, no means of opening."

"That's not meant to be opened at all," Tyler said, doggedly starting at Richter. "I wonder if you can break into a fortress as readily as you break into planes."

"Aw, give it a rest, Borden," Richter groaned. "I'm under contract. I had a job to do."

"And how is that going, taking orders from a snake in the grass?"

"I _know _what Khan is," the grizzly said. "I also know _I_ wouldn't be sitting here this close to Rhamastan with my thumb up my-!"

"Gentlemen!" Bagheera jumped in between the two, holding his hands up to halt the line of verbal crossfire. "I'm actually thinking our meeting here will serve us well. I understand the awkwardness of our situation, but I remind us all that neither Shere Khan nor the chancellor of Oxfurry are present with us. Our interests from this point need be no one's but our own. Therefore, perhaps we might pretend for a moment all that currently stands between us and history's greatest treasure trove is a thirty five-foot door. Since it appears this door will open for nothing short of being blown off its frame, I suggest we pool our resources and achieve what we are here to do."

"In other words, you didn't bring enough dynamite to blow it open," said Richter, dryly.

"Nor did you, I can see," said Bagheera. "Now here we are. Together we might crack this egg."

"I think he's right," said Myra. "I'm not one to take to mix TNT and archeology, but darn it, I want to see what's on the other side!"

"Well, it's been a long time coming," Richter said to Tyler. "Khan ain't here. I'll settle for a truce."

Tyler nodded. "Fine, then, for now. Let's get our hands dirty and open this bloody thing."

While Tyler and Myra took up pickaxes, Richter sorted through is supplies and found a bunched set of dynamite sticks. He tossed it to Bagheera, but not without a hard stare.

"What?" asked Bagheera.

"Lake Titicoocoo, huh?"

**

* * *

**

The crow of the rooster at dawn's first light was a time-honored village tradition for the Felocians to tell when it was time to rise. For the uninitiated pirate, it was the equivalent of flossing his ears with a nail file.

"Will somebody _strangle _that blasted bird!" cried Karnage from his hammock, pulling the blanket over his face.

"How long is it gonna keep doing that," groaned Kit. "It can't be morning already."

"Not even close."

"It's mor-ning, rise and shine!" sang Rupo from just outside the window. He opened the door and poked his head in. "Good morning, heroes!"

"Start taking names, boy," muttered Karnage. "Put the cheerful gato right underneath the estupid chicken. The bird gets it first."

"How did you two sleep?" asked Rupo.

"_Me_, with my ears plugged," Kit griped. "It was like sleeping under a motor boat."

"List yourself above the cheerful gato," said Karnage. "The bird _still _gets it first."

"The blanket and hammock aren't bad at all, though," Kit added. "Thanks."

"A pleasure, Master Kit," replied Rupo, bowing his head. "But come now, wake up! Breakfast is almost ready, and we have much to do, and a long way to travel."

"How long is a long way, Rupo?" Kit asked. "Where we going from here?"

"We go to Tresierras," said Rupo. "It will be a full day's journey, at least. There are somewhat faster ways to get there, such as hiking straight through the jungle, but perhaps that is not the most desirable option for you. That fastest way would by boat, to take the great river to the coast."

"So, we're boating?"

"We would otherwise, but today it is too risky. This time of year the river is very fast and wild." Then Rupo grinned. "But do you know much about llamas?"

**

* * *

**

Rupo guided Kit and Karnage through what he considered the safest route to the coastal towns, to traverse the outskirts of the jungle instead of going straight through it. They set off in the morning, with each a saddled llama to ride laden with satchels of supplies, and by midday they were climbing a winding path up a mountain. Rupo took the lead, of course, with Kit and Karnage following behind... at times, very behind.

"How do you _work _one of these things," complained Karnage. The llama snorted in reply with disfavor. When Karnage wanted it to move to the left, it moved right. When he wanted it to speed up, it slowed down. Presently it was weaving erratically from side to side. And what in the world were those reins supposed to do, anyway? Kit was in the same boat; for whatever reason llamas did what they did about themselves, his steed was precisely following the exact footsteps of Karnage's.

"Don't worry," Rupo called back at them. "They have been this way many times! They know their way!"

"I guess this a little better than walking," Kit said. "What do you think we oughtta get on our way back, anyway?"

"I am having that all figured out," replied Karnage.

"I figure shovels, food, maybe some rain gear..."

"Pfft, are you thinking we are _walking _there?"

"Okay, you wanna tell me what you have in mind?"

"How about forty muscle-bound baboons and the Iron Vulture."

"And just how do you think you're gonna get a hold of the Iron Vulture?"

"I am going to send a _smoke signal_, you pinhead. Will you let _me _do the thinking?"

Under screeches of high-flying eagles, they came to a grassy plateau stretching from steep green hills. It was the first time in days Kit and Karnage had seen the sunny sky unrestrained by the shadow of giant trees. From there, they were low enough to avoid the freezing winds, and high enough to see over the treetops of the basin, over the breadth of the jungle, and very far out, the shimmering ocean horizon for which they were headed.

Rupo dismounted and waited for the others to catch up. "We should rest here for a little while."

"Stupid harry moron of a mule," ranted Karnage. He was more than ready to get off, but the llama decided it was going to plot around until it chose where it wanted to stop.

"Come now, show the llama kindness and it will respect you back," said Rupo. "Besides, it is better than walking, is it not?"

Karnage eventually just abandoned ship, pulled his feet from the stirrups and managed to haphazardly roll off the saddle, doing a belly-flop in the grass. "Speak for yourself," he sulked. "I have no feeling in my tail!" The llama snorted again, this time he was pretty sure it was just laughing at him.

Soon they had a blanket spread and at a lunch of bread and fruit packed for them at the village. They sat near the edge of the plateau, where Rupo volunteered many bits of information about the land. "It is a beautiful place when it does not try to kill you," he grinned. "There is a song, an ancient song kept by our elders, that tells when our ancestors saw a fiery star plummet from the sky. It made its mark deep in the earth, here, where the jungle grew, and raised the mighty mountains around it."

He pointed to a nearby mountain, one that was not as high as the others but very broad as strong shoulders, and in the stead of a peak was a shallow caldera wide enough to park the Iron Vulture inside. "That is Mount Seren, the great spirit of might and compassion. It is the largest of all the nation's volcanos, but even in its most furious eruptions, the lava has always been channeled away from the basin, and..." He glanced at Kit and Karnage, who with him were gazing at the sea of trees as they absently chewed their food, they were clearly not admiring the geography. They were searching, imagining, and inwardly conspiring. "... spared our people. And if Rhamastan could be seen from here, it would have already been found."

"Wh-what makes you say that?" asked Kit.

"I told you, you are like all the others," said Rupo, shaking his head resignedly. "And even if you found it, seriously, what would you do with it, one man and a boy? You think about the gold. But what can I do. I will take you to the city and you will do as you please from there."

"Perhaps now he will shut up about it," Karnage muttered to Kit.

Rupo then added, "But allow me to put your illusion of fortune and fame into perspective..."

Karnage began peeling a banana. "Silly me."

"You have seen my village and our scarce numbers," said Rupo. "It is hard to think that once those standing in this place could see a sprawling kingdom of stone and iron wherever a green leaf now grows. My ancestors used to number this land like the sands of the shore, and yet today, they and everything they ever knew are buried. They faced... _extinction_. I have no better word for it.

"The reason was Rhamastan. There was always something unnatural about it, something that richly cursed those in its grasp. In the beginning of our history, it was a place to rest the dead... if it had a mind of its own, it intended to stay that way. As the tale goes, as the thousands worked for years in constructing the Ancient Cave into the kings new capital, a slow sickness came over them all, one that eventually killed the king himself. It would grow worse year by year, if not day by day, and decade by decade... the people grew weak, dry as it were... they could no longer bear children. It was like a poison, or a plague, and one by one, an entire generation vanished.

"They said the cruelness of this sickness was that it made them live longer, beyond their natural years, and every day more ill. Rhama himself was an old, old man by the the kingdom fell, already having seen as many days to last three lifetimes.

"When the war came to his kingdom, their fate was certain. Rhama betrayed his ally empire and invaded Aridia, bringing upon his people crushing retribution, vastly out-numbered and over-powered. As city after city fell, village after village burned, the Felocians fell back into Rhamastan, and were sieged there, many thousands of them. From whom this account started were the prisoners of war, the women and children spared, those who were left to rebuild and settle the land anew. But from Rhamastan, there was never a survivor heard from, not even when their enemies gave up pursuit and sailed back home.

"When I told you Rhamastan was a death trap, I meant it. I also meant what I said about the varans eating you. In either case, you only need to ask yourself how much is gold truly worth."

"Six hundred dollars a pound by the bar," Karnage quickly answered. At the two inquisitive stares he received, he replied, "What? You need to know these things!"

Rupo began to pack up. "Let's move on," he sighed. "It is still a long way that we must go to Tresierras."

**

* * *

**

They rode onward uphill between steep, spiring hills, occasionally passing by a grazing wild goat. Muddy bald patches in the grass revealed what remained of the old, rugged path they followed. The eagles circling overhead made Kit wistful to see an airplane again, though he was eager just to see any comfort of home.

"Why don't you guys move out of here," he asked Rupo. "You know, where there's light bulbs and kitchen sinks."

"I tried that!" the cougar replied. "And after many years, I still felt homesick. Your heart knows where your true home is, young one, and that is something you will always have with you, no matter where you are. This is our home, it always has been, and always will." He looked back at Karnage, who was still unable to come to agreeable terms with his steed, and had exhausted himself of any more names to call it at the moment. "You! You speak the language of some of the cities here. Where do you call home?"

"Me? Oh, I have a cozy little place that I like to call _mind your own business_," said Karnage.

"Humph. Strike a nerve, did I?"

"No, I am just sick of hearing you not shut up your face. You talk about the flowers, you talk about the plants, you talk about the clouds, the rain, the bugs..."

Kit scowled at him. "Why are you such a crab all the time?"

Karnage replied by pointing at himself with his thumb. "Pirate! I don't _do _good moods."

Rupo suddenly yanked his llama to a halt, causing Kit's to nearly bump into him. "Pirate...?" He looked over Karnage again as if seeing him for the first time, and his observation about the wolf's name and uncontemporary clothing struck a new cord. A wanted poster circulated the previous year in Alpacito came to mind. "I should have known!"

"No no, he said _pilot_," Kit tried to say, "Pil-what the...!" All three of the llamas suddenly stirred aggressively, catching their riders by surprise; being the more experienced, Rupo managed to hold on atop his saddle, but Kit and Karnage were promptly bucked off and their steeds scattered away in a panic. "_They _know what a pirate is?"

As Rupo shouted commands at the llamas, a shadow swiftly brushed over them, and from the sky there was not an eagle's bold shriek, but a loud, terrible squawk. "Condor!" shouted Rupo, diving from his llama to the grass. "Condor! Get down!"

Kit recognized the giant bird by its silhouette against the sun, plump, bald-headed, and just as mangy as he ever remembered. And perhaps the condor remembered him as well, because for him it was diving down with its talons reaching.

As it swooped, Kit fell on his back; the the condor grazed his head but missed, its talons ended up plowing into the ground, braking it with a sudden and clumsy roll, pinfeathers over beak.

"Run toward me," Rupo called to Kit and Karnage. "Get away from the ledge!"

No one had much time to react before it was up again, wings outstretched and strutting in a pivot opposite of Kit and Karnage.

Rupo shouted again, "Get away from the ledge! Hurry!"

Karnage bent down in a defensive posture behind Kit. "Quiet, gato! What does this dumb cluck of an overgrown omlette think it will do to do to us, anyway?"

"That 'dumb cluck' is cornering you, you arrogant fool!" yelled Rupo. "You are trapped!"

Karnage tipped a glance behind his heels. There was no more ground, and it was a long, long tumble to the bottom. "Oh."

The condor let loose with another ear-aching squawk, and with leap and heavy thrust of its wings, darted at speed toward them; they could not move out of the way in time.

The next thing Rupo knew, they had both disappeared, along with the condor. Dread in his thoughts, he haplessly ran to the ledge to see what became of his companions.

The giant condor held Kit by the ankles, and Karnage dangled from Kit, feet kicking and both hands latched to the boy's arms! With much effort and many powerful flaps, the condor took them higher and farther over the jungle, leaving the echoes of two distinct voices hollering together: "_Aaaauuugghh_!"

**

* * *

**

Tyler, Richter and the rest stood outside of the cave holding Rhmastan's gate, covered in dust and dirt, coughing, blinking, and for the moment licking the wounds of hurt pride. The good news was their plan had succeeded. Strategically-placed dynamite tipped the heavy iron seal on its face. The bad news was much of the cave collapsed with it, sending everyone running for their lives.

"That was a... _slightly _overlooked consequence, wasn't it," remarked Tyler.

"Not only did I know you were gonna say that," grumbled Richter, "but you were gonna say it like _that_."

They were four silent and pouting faces, waiting for the dust to settle before they began to climb over the rubble to see what mess lie before them. Eventually, Myra stepped forward, squinting into the dark mouth of the cave. "Guys, I think I see..." She knelt down, holding her hand over her glasses to keep the sun glare away. "I do!"

"What do you see?" asked Bagheera.

"Light!"

Tyler leaned forward and squinted. "By jolly, I think you're right! And-huh?" He looked up, with his pointed fox ears zeroed in to the sky. "I could swear I just heard someone shout for help."

**

* * *

**

"I can't hold on!" cried Kit. With his ankles in the clutches of the giant condor, his eyes were shut tight. He could not look down anymore, to see Karnage panicked or the height of their impending fall. The wind was blasting and ice cold, and being stretched from arms to feet, he was in a world of hurt.

Karnage kept faltering to gain a firm grip around Kit's arms. "Exactly _who _is doing the holding on around here!" He saw that they were high above the large volcano Rupo had pointed out. A fall would have been deadly; they needed the bird to land. With a resolute battle-growl, Karnage rallied his strength and hoisted himself up enough to reach the condor's talon. "Get ready to trade places, boy! Hold on to _me_!"

Kit grabbed around wildly until he had the captain around leg.

"You let go, you die!" yelled Karnage. "Understand?"

"What are you gonna do?"

"_Understand_?"

"Yes!"

The pirate snarled in the wind and sunk his teeth into the condor's knuckle. The bird squawked in a fit of pain and quickly turned Kit loose. It went into a spiraling dive, fiercely shaking its feet to drop them. "Hold on, boy!" His voice was cracking and strained. "Hold...!"

Don Karnage had hardly been as inclined to utter a prayer for his life, or consider a moment in his life where he had completely failed at something. That instant he did both. His hands slipped, and they were falling. His back was to the ground, and the promise of a very sudden and deadly stop coming any second, he was terror stricken, though of all things for his thoughts to be trained on, inescapably they were on Kit, for the boy had not let go as if somehow still trusting him to save them.

When they hit the ground, the world went deaf and black to Karnage... but only for a moment. He realized he was alive... and very cold.

He blinked and felt his surroundings, everything was icy slush. "Boy...?"

"You _gotta _come up with better plans," groaned Kit.

"We... made it," breathed Karnage. He burst into laughter. "Ha ha! I _did _it! I-_uno momento_, where the _frijoles _are we?"

They had plummeted into a large bank of fresh snow high atop of a mountain. Kit was wading through it chest-deep, trying to find some means to stand on the surface. "Are you okay? You weren't answering me for a while, I think you passed out."

"Nonsense, boy." Karnage tried climbing out of the silhouette-shaped crater he had made, slipped, and fell on his face. He sprang back up before Kit saw, covering up the imprint of his snout just as a precaution. "I was taking in the victory! Did you _see _what I did up there?"

"Yeah, and we're gonna be taking in some frozen fur if we don't get out this mess." Kit looked over Karnage's shoulder and saw the giant condor gliding toward them again. "Uh-oh, duck!"

"What duck?"

Kit huddled himself in the snow with his arms over his head. "No, _duck_!"

"_What _duck?" Karnage asked again, annoyed.

"Behind you!"

The condor, with an aim as terrible as its face was ugly, missed both of them with its claws and instead plunged beak-first into the same snow bank; the impact knocked them back and sent them tumbling down the mountain.

"_That was no duck_!" yelled Karnage.

They slid on their stomachs down the slope, until the snow became ice, where to their chagrin and further screaming they fell into a gaping chasm, and from there things had only begun to pick up. They were two self-made toboggans speeding through a hollowed ice tunnel, and after all its wicked bumps, turns and twists, they crashed to a halt against a solid ice wall.

They laid there for a while, arms and legs entirely sprawled, silently contemplating just how exactly they could be any more the brunt of fate's cruel sense of humor.

At length, Karnage offered his synopsis of the situation: "My. Eyebrows. Hurt."

"I hurt in places I can't even imagine," Kit added.

"And now that sounds like the floor cracking," said Karnage. And indeed, the floor was.

"Yup."

"It sounds like it is going to break."

"Yup."

"Of course. Why would it not."

"I bet seven seconds."

"I bet three."

The brittle sheet of frost they were on shattered to pieces, and they splashed down into another tunnel, this one carrying them along with a rushing stream of water. The end of the tunnel was a waterfall, and they were quickly spewed head-first into a cold pool inside an underground cavern.

Coughing, sputtering, disoriented, and chilled to their bones, they dog-paddled to a dry ledge and crawled on top. The ledge was made of smooth stone-cut bricks, though in the way they felt they had not immediately taken notice. There were more pressing things on their minds.

"When I get back home," Kit panted, "I'm never getting out of bed again."

Head bowed, Karnage sat and gave his brow a hard massage. "I am going to get in my plane and shoot _everything_!"

"Captain, look!" Kit grabbed him by the arm to take his hands from his eyes. Karnage's chin dropped, for they were in no mere cavern. The ledge they were one was narrow and indiscernably long, with another ledge just like it on the other side of the water, and above them, giant chandeliers hung with scores of bright, shining crystals.

With much wonder and curiosity, they began to aimlessly walk the length of the structure. "It looks like a... what do you call 'em, brings water to places," Kit said. "An aqueduct, I think."

"Oh no, no more of that!" Karnage suddenly stopped and yanked Kit back to face him. "If you say _'duck'_ one more time, back for a swim you go!"

**

* * *

**

For the first time in an age, the threshold of the underground citadel Rhamastan was crossed. Climbing over the rubble left by the explosion, Bagheera led the group inside. All but Richter took their backpacks with them; he made no comment on why he chose to leave his gear outside.

They were in a wide and long hall that sloped downward and curved far down the way. Its walls were cracked severely, but still polished, beveled with glyphs and symbols, and adorned with countless golden arches through its entire length, each socketed with several bright, glowing crystal orbs that lit the path. Dust was thick, but the air somehow smelled of a rainy spring day.

A steel double door, heavy, thick, and vault-like, lay discarded on its face at the hall's beginning next to its shattered hinges, blown apart by the explorers' dynamite. A peculiar detail they noticed was that it was highly ornate on the back side, bearing symbols depicting the old god Sargon and the namesake of the last Felocian king; they concluded that the scarred and dented iron put on the front of the gate had been put there to barricade the gate from the outside. On the ground where was more packed rubble, and they discerned that there had been a tunnel dug under the gate, which must have been filled to seal it off.

"Looks like the Aridians _did _break though," Myra said. "But there's gold and firestone here... so far it doesn't look like the took anything. And then they tried to seal it off... 'sealed their doom...'"

"These stones," said Bagheera, "those were the ones just like what I found in the Gatekeeper's tomb! The everlasting light!"

Richter had certainly taken keen notice of the legendary firestone; unlike the others, the awe and wonder present in his eyes quickly faded and the wheels of his mind were turning quickly with calculation. He laughed at loud, but as excitement may express itself through each person differently, the others took no notice. With the back of his fingers, he caressed one of the nearby glowing orbs; it was baseball-sized, cool to the touch, and at a closer look, cut with many faces as fine, sparkling diamonds would be cut for a ring.

With his machete he tried to pry the stone loose, but it was tightly fit and was not about to budge. At that, he became more so determined to pocket it. With one hand he held the knife so its tip was against the stone where it met its gold frame, and with his free hand, with a powerful and deliberate strike, he hammered down on the bottom of his machete...

_*BAM!*_

"Gah!"

In a sudden explosion and burst of light, Richter was kicked backward and slammed hard against the wall. The others ducked, it had sounded like a shotgun went off from out of nowhere. When they saw Richter, he was writhing on the ground in a litany of curses.

"J-Jesse!" Tyler was the first to hurry to his side. "Jesse! Speak to me!"

"I'm... I'm all right," Richter coughed. He stilled himself, flat on his back, and looked at his hands, which were tingling so intensely that they were shaking. Bagheera picked up the machete, and found the blade was hot.

"Well you don't _look _all right." Tyler and Myra took Richter by the shoulders to try to help him up, though 'try' is all they could do. "What on earth was that?"

"The firestone," grumbled Richter. Slowly, he rose to his feet, shrugged the others away and held the wall until he regained his balance. "I should've known better." Half of the stone he tried to remove had shattered, leaving what was once masterfully cut a jagged mess; from what part of the stone had been blown away, there was no residue left, no shards, not so much a speck of dust. "Khan's scientist call it incenderous quartz. One of their samples blew up on 'em when they tried to break it apart. Mess with it the wrong way and it's volatile as hell."

"Yes, yes," Bagheera thought aloud. "When I found the tome, there was firestone in that room, it must have been what caused the explosion. Did they identify the catalyst?"

Richter swiped his machete back from the panther, glowering over him. "Maybe they _hit it _too hard."

As he felt his bones stop rattling, Richer took a step and quickly favored his left leg, but only by habit, and he was about to air a few choice words about the varan that bit him, as had become his custom to do whenever the wound suddenly stung him, but he noticed something peculiar... his leg no longer hurt. For good measure, he stamped down three times with his foot. "Whaddaya know..."

"Are you _sure _you're all right?" asked Tyler.

"That's just it," Richter replied, and glanced over the other nearby firestone orbs with new discovery. "I never felt better."

**

* * *

**

At the base of the hall, their path turned into a wide stair and a finely-fitted brick road, meandering into a vast mountain cavern. It was bright as day and teeming with a vibrant garden: tall redwood trees and lush plants with giant, fanning leaves and glowing purple bulbs thrived abundantly, from the ground where they made there own forest to the high cliffs where their vines poured over ancient balconies fixed in the cavern wall. The firestone was everywhere, scattered across the ceiling as stars on a moonless night, and embedded in the walls and foliage. It was all very still, not a whisper of a breeze, like standing in a living photograph; a trickling stream was heard from somewhere, but not seen.

"My heaven, it's beautiful," a wide-eyed Bagheera smiled. In the center of the cavern, standing with the towering trees, was a great golden statue of a robed lioness with a vase wrapped in her arms, tipping it as to water the soil below.

"It's a bit disturbing," said Tyler. "Overall amazing, granted; but disturbing."

"I know," agreed Myra. "It's like walking into another world, a world without shadows."

"Yes, there is that," said Tyler. "But I'm referring to the chaps on the ground."

Amidst the inspiring beauty laid the grotesque. There were hundreds of soldiers from an ancient day, strewn across the cavern, hidden in the foliage, still donning their battle armor, most still with their swords and spears. The group stepped off the stairs and ventured to take a closer look at a nearby cluster of the withered corpses.

"I guess that answers the question," said Richter. "The Aridians fled because the Felocians brought 'em to a standstill battle here."

"That can't be right at all," replied Myra.

"Your glasses fogged?" snorted Richter. "It's wall-to-wall stiffs."

"I can see very well, thanks," scowled Myra. "Like I can see that none of these people are wearing Aridian armor."

"She's right," said Bagheera. "Seems they're all wearing old Felocian gear."

Richter turned from the rest and knelt beside one of the fallen soldiers, who was missing his body below his chest. The metallic torso armor was cut, pinched through as a boltcutter snaps a padlock. From under the iron helm, he could see tiger-striped fur of the soldier's neck. "They're not even skeletons," he mused. "They oughtta be _dust _by now, something's kept them preserved." He gave the soldier's helm a small jostle, and the head snapped off altogether. Preserved as they appeared, the bodies were as dry and brittle as autumn leaves.

"Take a gander at these poor saps over here," Bagheera said from nearby. "And over there... bloody, you can still practically smell the soot. Most of these boys were burned alive or mangled to pieces. What on earth did the Aridians _do_ to them?"

"They'd have a helluva weapon," Richter said. "Don't know what, but damn well effective."

"If the Aridians possessed a weapon that could do all this, there would have been some mention of it," said Myra. She thought for a moment and recalled the hieroglyphics from Pharaoh Oporkon's tomb. "They invaded Felocia to take back their belongings, if not to exact revenge, and from the look of it, they didn't do either. They had their enemy cornered, outnumbered, sieged the fortress for five years before breaching the gate, and then they about-face and go home with nothing. Doesn't that strike you as terribly suspicious?

"The Aridians wrote that they 'sealed their doom.' I think they meant it literally. Whatever killed these people wasn't the Aridian army, and whatever it was, the Aridians wanted it to stay locked up for good."

Tyler, Bagheera, and Richter shared glances with each other; knowingly, they also shared the same thought.

Bagheera chuckled, half-heartedly. "Come now, gents. It could have been anything. We all know the tribes keep a story of how a sickness took their ancestors. A disease, perhaps poison gasses from underground... anything like that."

"Nothing of the above that would have hewn their bodies as such," said Tyler.

"Well then, here they are, holed up and nowhere to go," said Bagheera. "A madness was thier doom; they slaughtered each other with in-fighting."

Myra shook her head. "Your enemy killing each other? The Aridians wouldn't have retreated for that."

Bagheera's tone became much sharper. "A nest of varans, then, overrun by them."

Richter pointed to one of the charred corpses. "Even if varans _could _take on a legion of soldiers, what cooked 'em?"

"Are we to stand here and dream of every circumstance under the realm of all possibility?" asked Bagheera. "Look, if Sargon himself sprung to life and did all this, it was five thousand very long years ago. Everything in here is dead. _Everything_."

**

* * *

**

"How could you not know what I meant," Kit argued. The topic of the hour was still in hot debate as he and Karnage continued to walk along the aqueduct. "It's a quick way of saying 'get your head down'!"

"Then _say _'get your head down'!" Karnage shouted back. "All day, I see chickens, then eagles, then condors, then you say _that_!"

"If I had the time, I would have drawn you a picture! No, wait, hand puppets!" Kit pursed his fingertips together on both hands and mimicked Karnage's voice for one of them:

_'Why hello, Captain Karnage.'_

_'Allo, bothersome bear. How are you doing it?'_

_'I'm fine, thanks, but if you just look behind you, I believe there's a giant pigeon that's about to rip your head off."_

_'Duck? I dun't see no steenking duck! What duck?'_

There was a shove, a yelp, and a splash, in that order. "I am nothing if not a pirate of my word," smirked Karnage. He cackled and ran away, dodging the onslaught of splashes aimed for his head.

The aqueduct went on seemingly forever, repetitious in its design, and every so often they passed another channel of water pouring into it from the ceiling. Eventually, it began to curve around in a long arc. The wonder of its decor had worn off on Kit and Karnage, and they trudged forward searching for the first way out... _any _way out. The thought did not escape that they were destined to walk in a big circle.

In almost an hour, they came to a break in the monotony. To their side, the ledge had opened to a dark chasm, and on the other side was an open archway.

Nearly a dozen tall pillars rose from the shadows of the chasm. They were arranged a few yards apart in line to the other side, and appeared to have had the purpose of supporting a bridge, though there was no sign of one ever being in place. Down below in the shadows, what was very much in place was a bed of tall, narrow spikes.

Kit jumped to the first pillar without any discussion of the wisdom of such a move or where the path might take them; this far along, neither one really cared. Kit made it to the other side and rounded the corner while Karnage was half-way across. "Whoa!" the boy gasped, after crossing through the archway.

"What do you see?" asked Karnage.

"I see... dead people." Kit's voice was but a shocked whisper. "Lots... and lots... of dead people."

Karnage followed just behind and cringed at the sight. There were hundreds of bodies in that one hall alone. Some were laid to rest in hollowed crevices in the walls, those were in either locked in sarcophagi or wrapped in fine linens with their arms placed over encased tomes. The rest-the bulk of the count-were unceremoniously dumped on the floor, perhaps because there was no other place to put them. It went on like that as far as they could see, until much further way the end of the catacomb became a ramp that ascended elsewhere.

Kit had his hand up to his mouth, and his breathing was heavy. "I... gotta get out of here. I'm gonna be sick."

The middle of the floor was adorned with glowing diamond-shaped stones, and, being surrounded and covered partially by the dead, they cast a dreadful, eerie shadow upward.

"Easy, boy," said Karnage, and he tiptoed over the corpses. Some still had golden rings and necklaces about their skeletons, and as his fingers itched to take the jewelry for himself, he shuddered at the thought that he might catch something unclean by touching their bearers. Then he noticed that those were left nearest to the firestone were nearly unblemished. They were not anonymous grinning skulls... they were faces. "You seen one, you seen them all... almost."

"But I've never..." Kit gulped, quite audibly, and he kept his sights away from the floor. "I don't know what they're supposed to look like, but some of them don't look like they've been here for that long."

"It is the stones," said Karnage. He knelt on both knees over one of the glowing pieces and put his hands over it. "It kept them like this."

"I think that's firestone. A guy told me about it the other day."

"I _know _what it is. _And _what it can do."

Something about the way Karnage said that made Kit start, as memory of the lightning gun flashed in his mind. "What can it do?"

"Is what Shere Khan made the red stone with, and look what that tiny pebble could do! You can imagine, with all of this, no?"

"How did you know about Shere Khan?"

"I had a a few pieces of this," said Karnage, tapping the firestone with his finger. "I ransomed them to Khan, and soon he made the red stone. Ah, this one is loose! You have anything in that mystery grab-bag you wear that can get it out?"

"No," said Kit. "I really think we oughtta just keep moving. I don't care if the firestone's worth a lot, I hate this room."

"Ah-ha," Karnage exclaimed, prying the stone with his fingers. "I almost have it!" The stone did move, but it moved straight down, slowly and evenly as if being lowered by some mechanism. Don Karnage had been in the treasure hunting business (and treasure stealing racket) for quite some time, and was adequately familiar with 'that feeling' where one knew a trap had just been triggered. "Ehr... oopsie."

"Oopsie?" blinked Kit. "What's _oopsie_? What'd you do?"

"N-nothing!" Karnage crouched on his toes, ready to jump in half a blink out of anything to suddenly spring from the walls. A few seconds passed, and they heard nor saw anything moving. "You see? No problemo!"

The floor dropped open from right underneath their feet, and down they went.

**

* * *

**

Kit stirred dazedly, finding himself with his nose planted against rocky ground. For a beat, he thought he was back in the depths of Pirate Island; the air was hot, smokey, and reeked of sulfur. It made his eyes water as he looked for Karnage. He saw that a few of the corpses had fallen with them and shattered into tiny pieces, leaving only their garments intact.

They had tumbled through another chute into a chamber, one that somewhat resembled a frying pan, with a broad circular floor and walls that were barely too tall to climb. Kit heard Karnage behind him, cursing indistinctly in Spanish for every bruise accounted for that day. Kit didn't know what he was saying exactly, but agreed nonetheless.

Suddenly Karnage shouted in great pain.

"My gosh," Kit gasped. "Are you-!"

Karnage was on his knees, surrounded by broken pieces of what loosely resembled shattered pottery, though at the moment they took no special observation of it. With a petrified gaze, Karnage looked down at his leggings, stained and dripping wet with dark red. "B-boy," he sputtered, "my... my... l-l..." His stare went cross-eyed and he started to wobble.

"No!" Kit ran to him and helped hold him up before he could toppled over. "I don't know what to do," he said, voice quavering. "We gotta stop the bl-yipe!" As he tried to brace the captain up, Kit's feet slipped on something slimy and he did the splits. Splattered all over the ground was the same goop Karnage had on him. "What a minute, that's not blood!"

"I... I..." Karnage paused in mid-wobble and blinked at the boy. "What?"

"You fell in something gross," Kit said, showing him a handful of the gooey mess before flinging it off. "Yuck!"

Karnage wiggled his knees and feet. He brightened as a new dawn and jumped up. "My lustrous legs are... are...!" Then he frowned, deeply. "Covered in _icky-ness _again! Why is it _me _always? Why why why!"

"Forget your icky-ness," Kit scowled. He shoved Karnage, although for the most part he only pushed himself back. "Next time, _think _before screaming like that! I thought... I thought you were...!"

"You thought _what_, boy? That this pirate was about to give his diving swan dirge? Ha!"

Kit glared at him as to burn a hole between his eyes.

"H'okay, h'okay," shrugged Karnage, "So _perhaps _the thought crossed my mind too."

What Karnage had fallen on was still partly intact, the cracked hollow of half an egg. Kit marveled at its size, for he could have fit inside the shell himself. There were several other eggs of similar size in the area, lined up along the wall, some whole and some cracked, and those had a different look, hardened and pale like cement, thick with fossilized residue that bound them to the ground. They looked like they had been there for a very long time, save for the one that broke Karnage's fall.

To the side of one egg lay curled the skeleton of a creature. Kit took a close look at it while Karnage kicked slime from his boots. It was large and reptilian, but not one of the infamous Atronador varans, as it had longer legs and a slender, nearly serpentine frame. Its bones were hollow and almost transparent, except its skull, which had a long jaw with saw-like teeth. Its tail was still inside the egg from which it came; it had not survived for long after hatching.

There was only one exit from the chamber, and as much of the other things they had seen, it was crafted, not a natural formation, an archway that led to an outside path, and a ramp of gray stone and iron, wrought into the red wall of an enormous cavern. It walked them steeply upward, below them the cavern was laden with white steam, and at times, when the thick fogs had parted, they could see in some measure the very bottom, glowing sulfur pools of a sapphire hue and veins of bright red magma.

"It looked like a dinosaur," said Kit, musing about the skeleton. "But they'd have to have been there forever, right?"

"Never mind it for now," said Karnage miserably, his boots still sloshing. They had just spotted, at the end of the ramp, a tunnel that went through the cavern wall. "We are almost out of this stinking hole in ground."

"But the one you fell on... it was... _fresh_," said Kit. He stopped and looked into the distance, where the blurry but vibrant web of magma stretched out hundreds of yards, until the steam and darkness overwhelmed all else. A heavy shadow stirred in the low-laying clouds.

"Holy smokin' lava," croaked Kit. He began to back up.

"We are near a volcano, what do you expect," said Karnage, brushing past the boy without pause.

"There's something down there!" Kit was about to go full sprint to the tunnel, but charged into Karnage's leg and sent them both stumbling.

"What are you trying to _do_, boy?" seethed Karnage. "Crawl in my pocket?" There was a low murmur that made the ground shake, making Karnage wish, for that matter, there was a pocket _he _could hide in. "What... did you see?"

Kit stammered to find the words. "Big... big...!" He threw his arms out wide to aid the description.

They peered over the ledge. The shadow had moved at great speed, planting such heavy steps that they could hear the crumbling of the rocky ground far below. In an instant it had raised its head them and met them at eye level... a dragon.

They were merely a few yards from his fanged maw, frozen in its scalding breath by a most terrified dread. It was an immense beast, either of its flared nostrils as tall as Karnage. It blinked at them with shining jet eyes; its flesh was black, scaly, scarred, and calloused, and it had two great horns swept back on either side of its crown, and two more jutting saber-like from under the contours of its jaw.

It took two long sniffs and narrowed its eyes on Karnage, growling, and let out a steaming huff that blew their fur back. Then it reared its head backward, inhaling deeply, and threw open its massive webbed wings to their full length, blotting the cavern in darkness, and the sudden gust roaring as if the air itself had been ripped apart.

In that brief instant of respite, for anyone to shout _'run!'_ by then seemed pointless. Pirate and cub bolted up the bridge and into the tunnel, where a bright and scorching wall of pure flame crashed at their heels.

They ran until their feet were suddenly pedaling nothing but air, and they tumbled into a silver chamber with many pillars large statues of guards in heavy armor, and many great forges that were long cold and dark. They took refuge behind one of the pillars, haunted by the roars and tremors that carried into the room, and for what room they were in they did not care, only the next route far, far away from where they had just come.

"Im-_poss_-ible," wheezed Karnage, his hands clutched over his brow; if he was losing his mind, he didn't want it to get very far. He turned and shook his fists toward the tunnel and all the abysmal racket coming from it. "There is no such thing as dragons!"

Kit slid to a seat against the pillar; he clasped his chest and swallowed, his heart pounding in his ears. "That's not gonna make it go away!"

There was a giant thud, and pieces of the wall began to crumble and fall. It was followed promptly by another thud.

"It cannot..." said Karnage. "Not through the wall!"

The next impact brought about a riveting quake, and the cracks in the wall came together into a fissure...

**

* * *

**

"Yes, my dear friends... and Mr. Richter," said Bagheera, jogging ahead of the group with his hands reached out in praise of the luster surrounding them. "I give you the golden city of Rhamastan!"

Delving ever further, they had ventured into the main court of the ancient stronghold, and beheld the sight of the legend they had only ever imagined. It was built as a massive ring and was tall as a skyscraper, such as looking at the wall of a giant round tower from the inside. The outermost wall was several stories of squared pillars and arches stacked on top of each other, housing a broad circle of balconies, stairs, ladders, and dwellings hollowed from the cavern. How far all the rooms and passages went beyond the doors and balconies, only their imaginations could conceive. Almost every crafted surface was shining gold, and that which was not appeared not to have been finished; scaffolds laid in ruined heaps in many places.

The road before the explorers went ahead straight, laid in granite bricks with utmost precision, as there was not a crack between the bricks large enough to wield a young blade of grass. Bordering the road were an array of marble pillars, each serving as the base for statues of a robed Felocian figures, their immortal images posed head high with pride and boldness.

At length the road became a circle around the centerpiece of all, a mighty stepped ziggurat temple, surrounded thickly by a garden of the giant-leafed plants and golden gazebos. A single path, smothered to a narrow line in the foliage, led to the temple's gates betwixt two stairs that climbed to an open terrace at the top. The large two-door gate was open, though left only partly ajar on its hinges.

The firestone was ample, in this area socketed symmetrically across the span of the looming, free-standing dome that made up the ceiling; at the very center, there was a massive cluster of the crystals that together shined nearly as bright as the sun. Also ample were the fallen Felocians, but those they tried to overlook, having made a pact for the time being to consider their good fortune at hand rather than mysteries they could not solve.

"These don't look like any old hovels," said Myra. She dashed ot the outer ring and went inside one of the doorways. "I'm going to have a look. You guys go on if you want, I won't be long!"

With no announcement of intention, Richter walked ahead of the rest, toward the temple. With his head straight forward, he gave the others behind him no clue to how he was darting his eyes to and fro, smirking. Bagheera and Tyler was more inclined to go Richter's way, toward what was conceivably the more significant find, but Bagheera noticed noticed Tyler lingering, uncertain of himself, glancing back at Myra's direction.

"Why don't you go with her?" asked Bagheera. "See if you can find any good knick-knacks to take along. Perhaps give yourself a moment to say a few things."

Tyler gestured at him to keep his voice down. "I hardly think this is the time or place."

"Which makes it perfect, because that time or place will never come. It's embarrassingly obvious you're thinking about it all the time, anyhow."

"I've been doing quite well thus far keeping my thoughts on the task at hand," said Tyler, eliciting a roll of the eyes from Bagheera. "I can't just blurt it out like some lecher!"

"Have mercy on me and get it off your chest so we can move on." Bagheera took his friend by the shoulders, pointed him toward Myra, and helped him along with a little shove. "I won't get too far ahead. Let me know what you find!"

"But... but...!"

"Doctor Myra," yelled Bagheera. "Tyler will be in to lend you a hand!"

"Great!" she replied.

Tyler gave Bagheera a scowl that inquired whether or not the panther would like to wake up with his whiskers tied in a knot. As he went into the room, there was heard a distant noise that sounded like the earth was groaning lowly. A soft tremor passed through the walls.

Myra swung her head back to look at him. She was on her hands and knees, sifting through a clutter of tools and crafts. "That didn't sound good."

"But it wasn't me!" said Tyler, which quickly embarrassed himself. He cleared his throat and started over. "We're near Mount Seren and all her little sisters. There's going to be a hiccup now and then, but by the looks of it nothing this place can't handle."

"Reasonable," grinned Myra. "That's what I like about you."

In stark contrast to the court outside, the room was dim and dusty, with only what light shone through its door to reveal its interior. There was a slab cut from a halved tree trunk with tattered wool mat that may have been a bed. The floor was the smoothed mountain rock, but its walls were of timber, and there was a brick stove and a pedestal with a half-finished sculpture; the bottom was still mostly a square marble brick, and at the top was chiseled the shoulders and mane recognizable to those present as the likeness of King Rhama, though the face was smashed away. The heavy mace which was wielded in the act still lay next to the pedestal.

Tyler picked up a gold figurines that glittered at his feet and took it by the door for a better look. It was of a miniature dragon. "This is a keeper," he thought aloud.

"Not in all of Aridia have I seen so much gold," said Myra. She picked up a wooden manakin adorned with gold-beaded necklaces. "Almost everything, everywhere. They must have smelted it by the ton."

"I'm not sure we've even seen it all yet," said Tyler. "The bloke staying here must've been quite the active artist." He dropped his backpack, unrolled a duffle bag from it, and started stuffing it with all the knickknacks he could fit. Myra soon joined him; there was an abundance of small items, vases, statuettes, and jewelry. After a moment, Tyler paused and picked up the dragon figurine once more; he had a gleam in his eye like he had just found his best friend. He would put it in the bag last, so he could bring it out first.

"I know that look," said Myra. "When you work to discover something for so long... I felt the same way when King Tuut's tomb was uncovered."

"Indeed." Tyler's spoke quiet and timidly. "I'm... I'm watching my own hands move, and I still almost can't believe they're doing what they are. In all the excitement, I guess it's just not struck me until now. I'm here."

"I'm glad I could share it with you."

Tyler's heartbeat went up a notch, and a wave of confidence washed upon him as he noted he was able to express himself while stifling the love-struck stuttering. He saw an opening for conversation and went for it. "You know, we've been so busy, I've hardly had a chance to say hello to you. I hope I haven't come off rude." So far, so good, he thought.

"Not at all," said Myra. "We have been busy."

"Wh-what has it been, nearly two years now?"

"Nearly, yes."

"You look good," he said suddenly. He was quick to add, "I'm sorry! That was terribly forward."

"You're still a sweetie," Myra giggled. "You look like you've been doing well, too!"

"Yes, well, I've been avoiding food from Pango-Pango."

While he chuckled at his own joke, Myra nodded matter-of-factly. "Oh, good!"

Tyler blushed deeply. He was quickly back to the dragon figurine, nervously fidgeting more than anything else. But alas, like a ray of sunshine pouring through a dark cloud, the charmed words had suddenly come to him. In swift decision he puffed his chest and drew the nerve to put his past embarrassment aside and ask Myra to dinner.

'You know, I would very much like to take you out to dinner again, to make up for the last time. Perhaps a little dancing afterward. No monkey business, mind you, just two like-minded people having a bit of fun and getting to know each other a little better.' That was what he _wanted _to say, in any event. What actually came out was, "Uh... you fun dinner?"

Myra blinked. "Beg your pardon?"

Tyler's lips felt numb; he tried to offer a quick apology, but all that came out was "Blip blub!" He grabbed his muzzle with both hands before he could utter anything further.

"Are you okay?"

"Sinuses," sniffled Tyler.

"Goodness," she replied. "Say, I have an idea. When things have relaxed a bit, why don't we give dinner another go? You know, like old times."

The gray fox brightened and nodded, though he somehow could not yet part hand and mouth. "I'd endoy dat!" When he realized what he was doing, he wisked his hands away behind his back and smiled sheepishly. "I mean, I'd like that, Myra. I... I think you're a very fascinating person, and... and... what I mean to say, is..." He stepped in front of her and took both her hands into his. "Quite lovely in every way."

Her surprised eyes widened over the frame of her glasses. They looked at each other for a moment, speechless.

"Say something, please," said Tyler though the teeth of his smile. "I'm terrified and can't move."

Just then, Bagheera burst into the room. "Will you two singing lovebirds save it for later! Come look at this!"

Tyler glared at him murderously. "Are you bloody _kidding _me?"

Myra slipped her hands away from Tyler's and stepped back. "Gosh, I don't know what to say! I never knew. I...!"

"Post haste!" interrupted Bagheera, with a tone of urgency. There was another quake and distant roar, much noticeably of greater magnitude than the first. Bagheera ran out, shouting, "Come to the temple! Up the top!"

Myra began to pick up their belongings. "We should hurry, I think. We can talk later, can't we?"

"Y-yes, yes, of course," murmured Tyler. He couldn't look at her. While he picked up the duffle bag, his eyes stayed on the floor, searching for a hole big enough to bury his head.

**

* * *

**

The terrace at the top of the ziggurat offered the best view overlooking the entire court, and it was where Richter and Bagheera had gone first to catch a more thorough look of their surroundings. It was from there they saw the far reaches of the cavern, behind the ziggurat, where the brick road succumbed to a field of black ash, and an uncovered grave for a great multitude of Felocian soldiers.

By the time Tyler and Myra had reached the temple's stairs, Richter and Bagheera were stepping down, their footsteps heavy and faces long.

"I take it you've heard those murmurs," said Bagheera. "I don't know if they're seismic, or something else..."

"We know what snuffed 'em," added Richter, grimly.

Bagheera offered no immediate explanation to what they had seen, and beckoned Tyler and Myra to follow them around the temple to see for themselves. They pushed their way through the dense plants, coming at last to the ash field. At the end was yet another cave, its mouth nearly a football field in size, but this was blocked at one time; part of a massive iron wall still stood on the edge of the opening, supported from the ground with an array of leaning buttresses, meant to solidify a barricade against the other side. The rest of the wall lay fallen in giant slabs.

Then there were the soldiers, a legion of them, and the telling sight of their demise. They shared their resting place with their advisary, dozens of winged, scaley beasts that sprouted with the swarm of spears, swords, and arrows by which they were eventually killed.

Tyler thought of the figurine, and how so similarly it resembled the creatures. "Dragons?"

"It would seem legend of Sargon was conceived on more than imagination," said Bagheera.

They gathered around the nearest dragon, prodding it with their toes and caressing its shriveled skin with much caution, as it crumbled to the touch, and so staggered were they that there still seemed no guarantee that the creature was not going to spring up and feast on them. By their recognition it was five yards long from nose to tip of tail.

"Sargon is everywhere on Felocian craft," said Bagheera. "Much larger, much more defined."

Myra took note of two horns protruding from the creature's head, which were mere bumps. "It looks... well, _young_. If Sargon was based on these monsters, could it be there were larger ones of their kind..."

From the cave, thundering echoes sounded like the roar of an entire forest blaze, and the noise did not cease. None could attest to a known natural phenomena that would cause such clamor, and the purpose of the iron wall became dreadfully apparent.

"If anyone recalls me saying 'everything here is dead,'" said Bagheera, stepping back, "I would not, at this point, be insulted for further argument."

"We don't know _what _that is," said Richter. "Relax."

"We know what we're all thinking," replied Bagheera. "It's time to decide promptly just how much faith we're going to give to Felocian mythology. Sargon was immortal... if these creatures could somehow survive down here..."

"Sargon didn't have kids," Richter said abruptly. "And he was a god, an idea inside somebody's screwed-up mind that everyone believed in. These lizards may have cut loose and waylaid these saps, but you said it right the first time: five thousand years ago, nothing's gonna live that long."

"I know what I said. Just consider the gardens, the city of gold... the firestone. Everything thus far is true to legend. If that stays true for us, to this extent, we may all be subject to the same fate dealt to my ancestors here. If there are living beasts in here like these..."

"I think, given what we don't know right now, we should leave and discuss it outside," said Tyler.

"I'll go with that," Myra said. "Better to err on the side of caution, if anything."

"And what do you think, Richter?" asked Bagheera.

"I think I want to find the king." The big bear brushed past them, crushing the head of the dragon underneath his boot. He headed back to the temple, waving them off. "You guys go discuss and err on the side of caution."

"How could you _ever _work with that creep," huffed Myra, once Richter was out of earshot. "I've seen undead mummies with better personalities."

"I know, I know," Tyler sighed. "But he's made our choice for us, hasn't he? It seems we could _possibly _run into a nest of dragons, or we can _definitely _surrender the discovery of Rhama's tomb to him."

**

* * *

**

The passage behind the temple's gates was cold, dark, and bare. For the first time since their arrival, the explorers had to rely on their flashlights, traversing a long hall that descended not into the structure itself, but below to a whole other level underneath the ziggurat and its courtyard. They afforded close attention to where they stepped, on guard for any traps. Eventually they came to a chamber, so dark and vast they could not see its sides, not even with the aid of their flashlights. There, in the blackness, a towering throne blazed a glorious white light, almost blinding in the sharp contrast of the dark void surrounding it.

They had to shield their eyes for a moment when approaching the throne, until their vision could adjust. On the top of a stepped platform, the throne's frame was of gold, bent with weaving thorn-like curves of lavish design, its back rose into five spires, claw-like, the centermost straight, and the four at its side curved inward. What was not gold was firestone, filling every space and crevice. A gaunt-faced, elderly lion slouched forward in the seat, donning in a heavy purple robe. Of things of particular interest, he bore a round firestone amulet on a long chain around his neck, and a Felocian spear thrust in his chest.

"This is either Rhama or Dracula," said Bagheera, as they dropped their backpacks and gear and crept up the platform. "Maybe both, for what this dismal vision of paradise is worth."

"It's awful stark for a place of royalty," said Myra. "Just him and this throne."

"But for everything we've heard of this lovely chap, this all seems a bit appropriate," remarked Tyler. "A total madman... and slain by his own, no less."

A lone scribe lay at the foot of the throne, sprawled over a thick leathery tome that was open to the middle. Bagheera slid the tome free, and found it was open to the last entry. He could not translate it immediately, for it was written with shaken penmanship and letters that liberally ran on top of each other.

Myra reached for the amulet, but her fingers stopped just shy of it as she tried to figure how she might get it off without damaging the king. To her surprise, Richter stepped beside her and lifted the chain over the king's head without incident, then handed it to her.

"Uh... thank you," she said.

"I won't need it," he smirked. "I'm just browsin' for now." Myra regarded his reply with much puzzlement.

"Just a king and this throne, my foot!" Bagheera suddenly exclaimed after squinting into the dark distance. He jotted down to retrieve his flashlight, and cast it at a distance from the throne. It was revealed that the chamber was cluttered with ornate containers, gold statues, bejeweled chests, banners, piles of coins and a sea of indiscernible trinkets, all the looted treasures from the tombs and cities of ancient Arida.

"By Jove, Bagheera," laughed Tyler, soon at the panther's side, "You've done it again!"

The treasure was unceremoniously piled, densely with no paths between objects, and quite literally everywhere to the side of and behind the throne. Just as they could not see the edge of the cavern, they could see no end to glitter for as far as their lights could shine.

"Oh, _wow_!" marveled Myra. "This makes King Tuut's tomb look like a yard sale!"

Richter stood by the throne, arms crossed, watching the other three celebrate. He grinned, for one part in approval of all the wealth being revealed with each turn of their flashlight, and for another part his own amusement at their naive assumption that they would somehow stake a claim in the treasure.

From somewhere in the dark, there were suddenly several clanks and clunks heard. The four looked around at each other, and it was from no one in their group. Richter jumped from the platform with his machete in hand.

In a moment, there was another round of clumsy noises, it sounded like the Aridian treasures were being knocked over in the distance. Then they heard a Spanish-accented voice cry out, one already familiar to most of them: "I would like to take _two _estupid steps this week without _tripping _over something! What is this junk!"

A young voice replied, "Ow! Well don't push it on top of _me_!"

"What happened to your lighter?"

"I don't know! Dang it, do you hear that? It's still following us! There's some light up there, maybe it's a way out!"

"I _see _the-ow! Oooh, that was the shin!"

"Kit," Tyler gasped quietly.

"Karnage," growled Richter, through grinded jaw.

Tyler shouted after the boy. "Kit! Is that you?"

"_Tyler_? Where are you?"

"Kit, how in the _world _did you wind up-oh, blast it. Follow the light, lad! We're right next to it!"

From the other side, Karnage said, "Tell me that is _not _the funny-sounding fooligan with the gray fur."

"Well it's probably not Rick Sky," Kit replied. "And what, you think his accent's funnier than _yours_?"

"_What _accent?"

Kit and Karnage felt their way blindly along, with a bright beacon and four flashlights swaying toward them from ahead. One flashlight broke away from the others, swinging in such a way that its bearer was obviously running toward them. As it got closer, it shined the light in Karnage's face. Karnage flinched and began to curse at him, but before he could complete even one _carumba_, he was violently knocked down as if hit by a speeding truck, taking many standing relics with him as he fell on top of a heap of coins. Kit cried out but could not see more than mere shadows behind the flashlight. The next thing Karnage knew, a sharp blade was against his throat, pinning him down.

"Richter!" yelled Tyler. "Wait! Don't harm the lad!"

Karnage blinked until his eyes uncrossed. "_Rrrichter_?"

"How the _hell _did you get in here?" seethed Richer.

As the others began to come near, Kit saw a mad glint in Richter's eye that warned of a compelling urge to not even give the pirate a chance to speak before carving his neck in two. "Hey! Leave him alone!" Kit went to pry Richter's machete away from Karnage, but the big bear pushed him without a thought into Tyler.

"Kit! Heavens lad, do you know how many people are looking for you right now?"

"What are you doing here with this cad?" asked Bagheera.

"That's a damn good question," Richter said, his machete was pushed as hard against the pirate's throat as it would go without breaking the skin. "As if I didn't know."

"The boy is my _prisoner_, of course," coughed Karnage. Under Richter's murderous glare, he added, "What, you think I carry my own bags?"

"Who saved you?" demanded Richter. "How many more of you scum are there?"

"_I_ saved him," Kit said. "And it's just him... and me." Concisely he described his predicament on the Iron Vulture, how they were stranded in the jungle, and how they had depended on each other to see their way home.

Through the explanation, Richter never moved his knife. "Kid, I don't know how you're still breathing, but if you want me to believe that _you _knocked me out..."

"Believe what you want. You were gonna kill him just because he made you mad. Notice he he could've returned the favor, but you're still alive."

"Yes, yes, notice!" croaked Karnage.

"We have rope packed away, Jesse," said Tyler. "We can bring him to Alpacito on our way back. I'm sure they'll be pleased to see him after the museum robbery."

"V-very pleased, _big _reward, no?" agreed hastily Karnage. "They _hate _me there!"

Myra shook her finger at him. "And if Aridia gets its hands on you, you'll be sorry."

"What'd he do in Aridia?" asked Tyler.

"Pyramid theft!"

Tyler and Bagheera looked at her incredulously. "_Pyramid theft_?"

Karnage cackled proudly, but being at the wrong end of a thoroughly unamused bear's machete quickly wiped the smile from his face.

At length Richter withdrew his knife; he grabbed Karnage by the front of his coat and leaned in close to him. "I'll give you this one. But any funny business, pull anything at all, and I swear on my own life that you're done for."

**

* * *

**

"We'll get word out to Baloo as soon as possible, lad," Tyler said. "He's been out and looking for you high and low. We'll be headed out of here in a jiff or two. You're welcome to look around with us, if you want."

"You're not listening to me," said Kit, having given multiple warnings about their recent encounter. "You have no idea what kind of monster we saw!"

"You wouldn't describe it as... dragon... -ish... would you?"

A surprised expression on Kit's face answered in the affirmative.

"Actually, I know what you saw," nodded Tyler. "We saw several of them, dead. If there's one running around, I'll speak about it with the others right now."

Karnage sat miserably at the bottom of the throne, his hands and arms bound behind his back. Presently all the shiny valuables being observed by the others meant nothing to him... prison bars did.

Kit had declined Tyler's offer and sat on the other side of the platform. Occasionally he glanced back at Karnage, seeing the pirate sullen and lost to his own gloomy thoughts. A new wave of quaking and rumbling flooded the chamber.

Tyler, Myra, and Bagheera huddled over an open chest that they were sorting through. "The lad says they ran from a live one," explained Tyler. "He said that's the racket we've been hearing off and on, they think it was following them."

Richter snorted, listening to their conversation from the shadows. "Just one?"

"Just one _confirmed_," scowled Tyler. "That means they _have _somehow survived this long. You can't tell me that even you're not thinking we might be getting in over our heads."

"We're near a volcano, the ground's gonna shake now and then," Richter said, dismissively. He scanned the pitch horizon while running his fingers over the grenades strapped to his belt. "Besides... I think I can take one of 'em."

Tyler rolled his with a frustrated groan, and he turned back to Myra and Bagheera. "I think we ought to bugger off now before we find out the hard way just how many there are. We've bagged up as much as we can carry, anyway, and that lad's been away from home for too long as it is."

Myra and Bagheera agreed, and as they gathered their things, Richter unspokenly followed suit, though unlike the rest he had no extra bag of trinkets. The only thing he had bothered to collect while inside the fortress was a pirate captain, whom he gave a push to make him stumble to his feet.

"I can walk by myself, you ninny," Karnage said, wriggling a few steps ahead of his captor.

"Shut up while you're at it, then," replied Richter. "I'm draggin' you on your face if you trip."

Karnage caught a glimpse of Kit behind Richter, and despite his predicament smiled with a bit of pride over how the boy maliciously glared at Richter behind his back, wishing he could put a dent in his head with his fist.

With their flashlights leading the way, the group left the throne behind, Karnage and Richter first, then Tyler and Bagheera, chatting quietly about the sack of new loot each held. Bagheera kept the king's tome snug under his arm. Myra fell back to walk with Kit, and introduced herself.

"So they tell me you fly with Baloo," she said.

"Yeah."

"How is the ol' bear?"

"He's fine," Kit replied, flatly.

Myra saw that his attention was preoccupied watching Richter and Karnage. "Well... that's good. I bet you'll be glad not to have to worry about that awful pirate getting in your way anymore."

Kit frowned, thinking of how if he had heard someone say that only one week ago, he would have been willing to lead a marching parade celebrating Karnage's capture. "He's... not all bad," he said, faintly so that none of the others heard, especially the two in the very front.

Echoes of long and loud breaths suddenly filled the air. The group stopped just shy of the the chamber exit hall, and behind them they heard clearly the sound of countless Aridian artifacts being knocked over in one swipe. There were heavy footsteps, set forth with a distinctive drum of large claws striking the ground in each stride.

Tyler pushed his fedora firmly down around his brow, in preparation for one of fiercest runs of his life. "Jesse... you might be getting your wish. A very big wish."

"It's here!" cried Kit. He dashed in front of Karnage, tugging on his coat to keep him moving. "We can't stand and gawk at it! It'll fry us!"

"Let's press on, quickly," said Bagheera, and they began to do so, all but one.

Richter halted everyone. "Watch the pirate," he said, looking at Tyler and Bagheera as he pushed past them, back toward the throne. "Watch the brat, too. Don't trust him."

"Jesse, don't be ridiculous!" said Tyler. "What do you think you're going to do?"

Richter replied only by taking his machete in hand.

"Let the lug-headed looney go!" blurted Karnage, a ray of hope in his tone. "This I would _love _to see!"

Kit tugged on Karnage's coat harder. "We've seen plenty! Pull chocks already!"

Richter approached the bright light of the throne, slow but with wide strides. Though the echo made it hard to tell from which direction the breathing was coming, he could see faintly a looming monstrous figure rising behind the old king.

"Aw, jiminy," he muttered, realizing it was more than a little larger than he expected, far more so than the ones he saw dead with the Felocian soldiers. Before he knew it, the glint of the creature's jaws was bearing over him.

The others had already beat a fast path up and out of the temple. Just as they passed the hinged gates and out the ziggurat's threshold when a great blast was heard from the tunnel. They slowed a moment to catch their breath.

"Bloody fool," Bagheera sighed. "That was suicide! What did he think to prove?"

Myra took off her glasses to wipe her sweat from the lenses on her thigh, slowly and with contemplation. "I can't believe he just..." Her voice trailed off.

"Are you all right, Myra?" asked Tyler.

"Yeah, but... even if he _was _a jerk, I've never lost anyone on the field."

"How about you, lad?"

Kit leaned over on his knees, breathing steadily, at length giving him a thumbs-up signal.

"I feel lousy," panted Karnage. "_If _anyone is wondering."

They heard a galloping from behind the gates, then Richter shouting, "Move it, move it, move it!"

"Jesse, what-?" Tyler peered behind the gate, and was abruptly tossed like a ragdoll when Richter burst outside and slid to a stop on his hip. Quickly the grizzly jumped to his feet and thrust himself against the left side of the gate.

"Shut the doors!" he yelled. "It's comin' this way!"

Bagheera and Myra helped Tyler up first; under the brim of his hat, his eyes danced in dizzy circles. Then they assisted with the other side of the gate.

"What _was _it?" Bagheera asked.

"Dragon," said Richter. "Big, white, fire-breathin' son of a gun! It was too dark in there, I couldn't get a move on it." Richter fell to his backside with his back planted against the gate, and kept his ear close. He chuckled to himself. "This is gonna be a good one."

Kit and Karnage shared a puzzled glance. _'White?'_ they thought.

Tyler had regained his balance and threw his hands up in outrage. "_Good one_? When did you go completely stark-raving mad!"

"I got me a plan," he said. "I can still take it down. I just needed to come out here to do it." Richter pressed his ear all the way against the gate. "It's coming! You guys scram, and don't forget the stinkin' pirate!"

What angered Karnage the more than the insult was that he didn't even have a hand untied to shake his fist with. "Who are _you _calling-ack!" He was grabbed right and left by Bagheera and Tyler and dragged away.

Richter ran up the steps of the ziggurat; he poised himself over the archway above the gate.

The dragon head-butted the gate wide open and announced itself with a mighty roar. Kit was with Myra, and they dove into the tall foliage for cover; he could not see the others, but he could see the dragon. It was a shimmering white beast with a long neck. It crept from the ziggurat in a low crouch, wings tucked to its back, barely squeezing through the gate, and it did not give chase. It had its eyes zeroed on something already, something right in front of it. Its wings flicked once as it stretched its back and stood to its full height-a good fifty feet, at least-sniffed twice and belched a puff of smoke from his snout.

Kit pulled back a patch of grass and saw what was before the dragon: Tyler, Bagheera, and Don Karnage. They had not moved quick enough to avoid being seen, and stood looking up at it in hapless terror. Tyler and Bagheera staggered in opposite directions, but the dragon had made its choice. It was fixated on Karnage.

Myra grabbed Kit by the ankle just as the boy was about to run out there. "No, Kit! It's too dangerous!"

"He's tied up! Someone's gotta help him!"

Richter leapt onto the dragon's shoulders, plunging his machete into the base of its neck. Fire spewed wildly in the air as the beast kicked its head back and howled in agony. It fanned its wings and squirmed, drooling flame and inadvertently spraying its own limbs ablaze as it tried to reach Richter with its jaws. The big bear had a firm clasps of its neck in his arms, and stabbed it repeatedly, but he realized he was doing little than hurting it... and making it angry.

With a mighty burst of its wings, it suddenly leapt and went airborne, circling the dome and bucking fiercely.

Bagheera heaved a sigh of relief, simply thankful the beast wasn't eyeing him; but he could hardly believe what he was watching Richter do. "_This _was a plan?"

"No, I'm certain he's playing _this _part by ear," said Tyler.

Myra and Kit came out from their hiding spot; while everyone else watched the dragon awestruck, Kit ducked behind Karnage and tried to undo the ropes around his arms without anyone noticing.

"That's my boy," whispered Karnage. "Hurry! We make like a leaf and vamoose!"

"Hold on, I'm trying," Kit said. "And it's make like a _tree_!"

"Since _when _do trees vamoose?" snapped Karnage.

Unable to loosen the tight knots, he restored to his teeth and tried chewing through the rope.

Tyler happened to turn and see him. "Kit! What on earth are you doing!"

"You can't leave him tied up," Kit said. "Not while that thing's around!"

"Nothing doing," insisted Bagheera. "We'll keep safe if we can, but we're not fool enough to just let him loose!"

"Keep him safe? You were doing a great job of that a minute ago!"

Swooping over their heads, Richter was screaming and swearing like he had never uttered an uncouth word before and had a lot of catching up to do. The dragon landed on top of the ziggurat, shook its back, but could not get rid of its unwelcome rider. A stream of blood poured down and flung from its limbs, and fire shot from its mouth in a great pillar. Richter jumped from its shoulders and began climbing its neck, driving his machete into the beast every inch of the way.

In a desperate fit, the dragon threw itself down the ziggurat's stairs, rolling on its back to try to scrape Richter off.

"Look out!" cried Bagheera, and everyone scattered from the front of the temple, just missing being crushed by the ghastly avalanche tumbling to the ground. The dragon landed on its side, squealing. Its shrill cries were echoed by a very deep growl, from where or what was not seen. By the time it had rolled back right-side up, Richter was on its head, holding fast to its two horns. Eventually the dragon rose again, its neck and limbs wavering and darkened deep red, and it whipped its head forward and finally flung Richter over its face. The grizzly was wide-eyed as he held onto the top of the dragon's nose, guessing quickly that this was not where he wanted to be. Scalding steam burned his stomach. He snatched one of his grenades and pulled the pin, and the dragon opened its maw to bite his legs.

The others saw him push away and fall under the dragon, and counted down from 'five' with his fingers. The dragon slammed its talons on either side of his shoulders, trapping him in place, and inhaled deeply to deliver the most vindictive wave of flame it had ever breathed... until Richter finished counting.

It was a gruesome explosion, fleshy parts and scales splattering and raining down about the court. The headless giant fell at last, gurgling its last breath from the neck.

Richter rolled flat on his back, bathed in the creature's blood. "Hot damn!" he shouted. "That's how it's done!"

"Oh, pooh," Karnage jeered. "_Anyone _could do it."

"Bravo, Jesse," said Tyler. "I'll say that for you... bravo. Are you going to be okay?"

"I told ya..." He sat up and patted the wound on his left leg. "Never felt better."

"Well there's your dragon, lad," said Bagheera. "You were right, it was quite the size."

"Uh, no, that's _not _our dragon," Kit replied, disgustedly wiping a piece of dragon goo from his sleeve. "Not even close."

"How do you know it's not the same?" asked Bagheera.

"Because the one we saw was _black_, and a lot _bigger_," said Kit.

"Bigger," scoffed Richter. "You don't know what you saw."

After so many turns of events thus far, Tyler wasn't so inclined to dismiss the boy's information. "How _much _bigger, would you say?"

"Well... ever see the Spruce Moose?"

"It couldn't be that big," said Tyler.

"I'd say bigger," replied Kit.

"Lad, think a moment, let's not exaggerate."

"The boy just _told you_," Karnage said. "I saw it too, you buffoon!"

A roaring howl blasted through the caverns. It came from behind the ziggurat, from the cavern where the ruined wall lay. Richter's shoulder's stiffened; he looked toward the cave in weary disbelief. The depths of the cavern disappeared in a dark fog, but a glow of red flame flickered from deep inside.

Tyler turned to Kit again, showing him the necklace he had tucked under his shirt, and the old ornament that depicted the Felocian dragon god. "D-did it have horns coming around its jaw? Like this?"

"Yeah! How'd you know?"

Richter went on another swearing tirade, swinging his fists high in the air. "That can't be! He's not real, dammit!"

What had been left standing of the ancient wall barricading the cave fell with a quaking thud, and a cloud of smoke poured forth. And they saw it, at last, the massive beast in the shadows clawing its way into the court, its horned crown glowing in the light of its own fiery breath; as large as the mouth of the cavern was, the beast was strikingly larger. In forceful swipes, its talons tore into the bare rock and earth, piece by piece, making a path for itself.

As cocky as he had felt just a moment before, Richter dared not brave a stand against the beast. He was the first one to about face and flee. The others followed quickly in suit, with a bit of commotion as they hastily gathered their gear and belongings. Tyler and Myra took up the loot bags and Bagheera ran beside Karnage. Kit stayed fast at the pirate's side.

They ran on the road to the gardens, set between two tall and winding ridges, occasionally having to leap over an old corpse. No matter how fast they ran, the beast's roars were at their heels. Over the clamor of their own sprinting, they could hear it after them, the cavern walls shaking with every stamp of its feet. They made it back to the entrance hall, and sped through its long passage uphill.

Once past the threshold, they collectively collapsed on the rubble, gasping for air. Outside, no tint of sky awaited them. Night had fallen in the jungle, foggy and pitch.

"Confound it, we had it," Bagheera wheezed. "We found Rhamastan! We won't have come this far to have some wretched beast stop us!"

"That was no mere beast," said Tyler. "I think we're safe here... it was much too big to follow us through the tunnel."

"But what are we going to do?" asked Mrya. "Give up? There's so much in there!"

"We need to just take a little while to collect ourselves," said Bagheera. "We'll make camp for the night. We're an intelligent bunch, we'll think of something."

"Yeah, sit there and _think _about it," scoffed Richter. "I _got _a solution. Blast the damn thing to hell and back."

"Oh? And, pray tell, just _how _do you intend to accomplish that?" asked Bagheera.

"I'll _think _of something," Richter grumbled.

"We're going to take care of this, one way or another," Bagheera said. "I don't care if I have to bring a horse, lance, and a bloody suit of shining armor!"


	10. A broken reflection

**Chapter 10**

**A broken reflection**

Continuing with their truce, the explorers made their camp all the way at the front of the Rainbow Canyon. They chose not to stay so close to the unsealed entry of Rhamastan, lest they be suddenly visited by some unwelcome surprise as they slept. The air was warm and misty and the sky starless and overcast; it was bound to rain soon.

After the tents were pitched and the campfires started, the first thing Bagheera did was flip through the burial tome found at Rhama's throne. Eagerly he devoured page after page, the account being told of the king's life, Sargon, the war, and the building of Rhamastan. Later in the night he discussed all bits of gathered observation with Tyler and Myra, collected what Kit had to say about his journey, and thereafter opened his journal, ripped out and crumbled several previous entries, and began anew to describe the events leading to their discovery:

_I turn the eye of my mind to the distant past, and reconstruct the end of the Felocian kingdom._

_Five thousand years ago, King Rhama of Felocia mined and ravaged the mystical and lustrous resources of his ancestor's hallowed tombs to bring about his dark vision of paradise on earth. He planned a new capital, a vast underground stronghold christened in his own name._

_The caverns were saturated in the abundance of the legendary firestone, and those subject to prolonged exposure of its strange energy were gifted with longevity... and cursed with weakness and infertility. Over time it drained them of their very life, yet those who fell under its glare would be forever preserved in a shell of their former selves._

_With the kingdom's population fading, and the prospect of Rhamastan never being completed, Rhama commenced an unprecedented stunt. He sailed an army across the sea and plundered the world power of the age, Aridia, thus ending generations of peace between the two nations. Whether this was a gamble to bolster his waning empire or an act of suicide, the reasons have past away with him._

_The war was swiftly brought back to Felocia, though the Aridians were ill-prepared to persevere in the jungle, contending with the beasts and storms. They had no desire for the land, only Rhama's head and just retribution._

_The first massive wave of Aridian soldiers aimed for the capital city of Sin Rha'Amakhan, garrisoned by the Gatekeeper Zul Rhakeith, general of Rhamastan's defenses, who was recently deceased and buried in a tomb under the citadel's temple. With no hope of victory, Rhama evoked a last-resort defense mechanism that channeled magma from a nearby volcano through the valley and into the city. The magma was incited by firestone fed into it. The result was catastrophic explosion that brought down the surrounding cliffs. The sprawling citadel was buried in mere moments, and none in its walls were left alive._

_The Aridians, in all their great strength, finally fathomed what brutal cunning they faced._

_From there, the war swept across the smaller cities and villages and was fought and finished at the gates of Rhamastan, without the two armies ever meeting. Five years passed. The Aridians sieged Rhamastan and worked tirelessly to gain entry. When at last they did, burrowing a tunnel under the gate, they found their enemy already slain. When they realized what had killed them, they hastily retreated, taking great measure to fill the tunnel and seal the gate behind them to ensure they would not be followed._

_For during the siege the Felocians had rebelled against the king and killed him, and as a last effort to save themselves from the Aridians, they chose to traverse the darkest depths the Ancient Cave, and take their chances in finding a way out. Their decision was to take the firestone as an explosive and destroy a great iron wall that would take them to untold depths of the earth; a wall constructed in a time that was ancient to them, known only to them as being forbidden to cross, having kept behind its bounds Felocia's best kept secret..._

An ink blot soaked onto the page as Bagheera thought. He then continued writing:

_Sargon. The dragon god of their age-old mythology awaited them. His brood was unleashed and satiated its hunger against the Felocians. The soldiers slew many of them, in a valiant effort possibly drove the beasts to the brink of extinction, but in the end were overwhelmed; the dragon patriarch and at least one other survived, and there, in the caverns, they have been for these five thousand years, waiting for the next band of fools to trespass their realm._

_Today his companion was slain, and he has made his intent of revenge known. We do not know where he came from. We do not know how he has thrived. We only know that Sargon was no myth. He is not dead. He is alive and well, of flesh and blood..._

_And fire._

**

* * *

**

Their camp was four tents around a fire, on top of a leaf-carpeted knoll walled in by giant kapok trees. Many inquisitive eyes shone from the branches and bushes, watching and listening to the strangers study and talk about the golden relics they had recovered.

Tyler and Myra sat together on a log between their tents, by coincidence at first; while putting up their tents, after all the ropes tightened, flaps smoothed, and stakes secured in the ground, they merely sat down for a rest at the same time. Shy smiles and awkward glances eventually led to giggles and small-talk.

Karnage sat immobilized on the edge of the camp against one of the trees, wrapped in rope from boots to shoulders, under the watch of Richter. Kit had not felt comfortable joining them around the fire, and did not want to be seen as much as looking at Karnage; he kept solitary inside Tyler's tent and fell asleep long before the others.

Bagheera reclined by the fire with a radio and turned the knob back and forth to find anything but static. On a curious thought, he asked Myra for the king's shining amulet. When he held it next to the radio, there was not static but screeching. "Ha, there! There's what's been causing the interference. The more firestone we've been standing over, the worst its gotten."

"Leaves you to wonder just how big those caverns are," said Tyler. "Some food for thought: the Felocians believed Seren imprisoned Sargon, could that have been literally? Seren, the earth, from deep down where who knows _what's _there, had the dragons trapped."

"You don't suppose it could get out somehow," said Myra.

"Barring any more the smaller ones, I think that's at least one thing we won't have to worry about," replied Bagheera. "It'd need to find itself a bloody big hole in the ground to squirm from."

"Right," agreed Myra, but then she blinked. "Is the volcano big enough?" Seeing as she made Tyler and Bagheera share a startled glance, she changed the subject. "I'm sorry, maybe we shouldn't think about that tonight. I hope we can go back in soon. Just imagine, an exhibit featuring king Rhama himself sitting in his own throne."

"The throne's gone, by the way," said Richter, swigging a steaming metal mug of coffee in the shadows. "Dragon breathed on it."

"G-gone?" sputtered Bagheera. "_How _is it gone?"

"Firestone, turns out, don't like fire. When I tried to put some distance between the dragon and me, it shot a flame, hit the throne... all that light blew up like dynamite right under its face, dazed the bastard long enough for me to make a run for it."

"Oh, no," Myra frowned. "The crystals are all over the place... with that thing running loose and spitting fire on anything it wants, everything could all be lost!"

"We won't let that happen," said Tyler. Then all eyes were on him, waiting for him to announce an idea. He wanted to shrink away. "I don't know _how_, I was just throwing in my vote of confidence."

Richter took another swig of coffee, breathing the steam through his nose. "You know, when animals attack, they just lunge at you. That white dragon was something else. It stood right there in front of me, could've tried to tear me up first thing, but it didn't. It just stood over me for a minute... looked at me. Studied me. Like it was trying to figure me out, what I was, or why I was there. It wasn't a soulless machine running on instinct... you could just see it in its eyes. It wasn't hungry, it wasn't scared... just a thoughtful killer. When I realized that, I could've swore I felt ice in my veins."

"I thought it was strange how it singled out the pirate," said Bagheera. "It sniffed like it smelled something on him it didn't like. I don't recall it even looking at the rest of us."

"We've got our work cut out for us to see any of that treasure again," Tyler said, holding the dragon figurine he had found. "I'll never look at any of these artifacts in the same way."

A silent moment past in contemplation of their dilemma, and at length Richter spoke again: "I'm gonna level with you guys, because there's nothing secret about it. Shere Khan's got an entire fleet of cargo zeps ready to strip this place bare, just waiting for me to give the word. You should probably consider that before you start making plans."

"Now see here," said Bagheera. "We've a stake in this, too. Oxfurry, Aridia, Cape Suzette... and Alpacatan's obviously going to want in. You think you're just going to whisk this all way from under everyone's nose?"

"No, I think Khan's going to send diplomats to sweet-talk the Alpacatan generals, and then his fleet is going to whisk everything away, and I'm going sit back and enjoy my share."

"What _was _your share?" Bagheera asked.

"Khan mostly wants the rocks, I wanted the gold," smirked Richter. "Simple arrangement."

"_All _of it? Absurd!"

"Don't look at me like a bandit, you were all looking to fill your pockets more than your museums," said Richter. "You had your chance to sign up, but you thought you had some principle to uphold. You take it as some sort of life-fulfilling mission, to me it's a fun way to make a buck. If it makes you sleep better, take what you got already in those sacks, but what's left in there is spoken for."

Bagheera scooted around to turn his back on him. "You and Khan are _not _taking Rhamastan."

"Well, I'll tell you what," said Richter. "I'm not stopping you, and we all know where it's at now. All you need to do is clean it out first." Richter raised his mug in a mock salute. "Good luck."

**

* * *

**

Kit awoke in the late hours of the night, Tyler curled in a sleeping bag next to him, and though all the others were asleep, there was no peaceful quiet, for rain and thunder had come in unrelenting droves. He pulled away the flap of the tent and peered outside. The campfire was long drowned, and on its other side Don Karnage was left out alone in binds, miserable as he had ever been in his life.

Tyler had left an oil lantern lit at his side, which Kit used to find a utility knife among his belongings. Before stepping out of the tent, he took a deep breath as if he was about to take a plunge into the ocean... considering how much it was raining, he was certainly going to get just as wet. He was thinking of what he was about to do, not knowing if someone would see him or not, and how it would not matter even if they did, for in either success or failure of this task he would be branded a criminal.

Lantern and knife in hand, he made his move. The clamor of the rain kept the splashingof his feet running through the mud silent.

Karnage's eyes were heavy and bloodshot. In his misery he had not a rested, and it took him a moment to realize had knelt beside him and started working on the rope. Every moment spent in the downpour, he hardly thought of anything but how the boy was home free and no longer needed his help to get home. It worried him sick to his stomach, as hour after hour passed and it had seemed Kit made his choice; but when the boy was there at last, the burst of delightful pride he felt renewed his spirit.

There was no need to admit any of that, though. "It is about time," he snarled.

"Yeah, yeah. You're welcome." Kit slid the knife between the rope and Karnage's arm and started sawing away.

"Helping me go free... they will know it was you," smirked Karnage... but he was startled when Kit suddenly ceased cutting the rope to think it over. "That does not mean you have to stop!"

"Forget 'em," said Kit. With one strong pull of the knife, the rope broke apart and unraveled. "We're in this mess together. At least, you're the one who got us into it, you might as well be the one to get us out."

"Ha! Not bad at being bad, my boy." Karnage had not even waited for all the feeling to come back to his fingertips before he held out his hand. "Now, give me that knife!"

Kit tilted his head in grave suspicion. It seemed to him that Karnage had just grown two little red horns on his head. "What... for?"

"Hurry!" Karnage grabbed Kit's wrist until the knife fell into his hand. The blade was only a couple inches, but it would do nicely.

"Hey! What are you gonna do? Let's just get out of here!"

Karnage shushed him. "No! We came here for treasure! Don't you know the first rule for any treasure-plundering pirate? Never go back without it!"

"_Since when _is there a pirate treasure hunting rule book?"

Karnage shrugged and gave Kit the rope to carry. "So I make it up as I go along, big deal. Follow me!"

"This is gonna be ba-ad," Kit muttered, though he followed anyway. He had been with Karnage on enough schemes back in the day to know there was a point where talking him out of something was a waste of breath, and the fiendish grin on the captian's face meant this was one of those times.

Karnage went straight for Bagheera's tent, where he had seen the sacks of valuables taken in for the night. The panther was sound asleep, cheek on pillow. Karnage rubbed his hands together like a child about to go on a shopping spree in Toyland. The two duffle bags there were bumpy with all sorts of golden goods.

"You start on the feet, yes-no?" Karnage said to Kit, pointing to the rope.

"But why?" whispered Kit. "He prob'ly won't even hear us!"

"Don't be such a soiled sort," replied Karnage.

That one took a moment to register. "Spoiled sport...?"

"That too," said Karnage. "When he _does _wake up, you want him to run out and tell everyone, or do you want to get a start on your head?"

Karnage picked up one of the duffle bags, and the rattling did wake Bagheera, gasping in the middle of a snore. Karnage was quick to put his hand over the panther's mouth, showing him the knife with the other. Bagheera needed no instruction to stay still and quiet.

Kit gulped. "_Now _what?"

When Bagheera noticed Kit, it suddenly became clear how he came to be held at knife point, and his fur bristled with indignation. "Lad, how _could _you?" he fumed. "Richter was right all along!"

Karnage snickered with glee. "Señior Baggy-pants, would you be so kind as to show the boy your hands?"

With little choice, Bagheera complied, vowing under his breath that the two would never get away with this. Kit began tying his wrists together and shrugged. "Sorry! I really didn't want this to happen."

"_Sorry_," huffed Bagheera. "You're _sorry_! You'll be sorry when you're locked up in-mmph!"

"There, chew on that," said Karnage, stuffing a handkerchief in Bagheera's mouth. Kit and Karnage worked quickly to tie his arms and feet, and bound everything to the poles of his tent, so that when he did finally try to squirm free, everything would collapse.

"Now then," Karnage said, "We need a number. A simple, roundish number, easy to remember." He glowered at Bagheera viciously, holding the knife under his nose. "Like ten thousand. Start counting backwards. You miss a number, and it's all over, h'okey-dokey?"

Bagheera swallowed hard, and through muffled tongue, began counting, "Nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine..." While he was busy with that, Karnage handed Kit one of the loot-filled sacks, took one himself, and they stole out the tent.

About ten seconds past. Bagheera wasted no time in trying to wriggle free, and managed to spit the cloth from his mouth. Just then, Karnage poked his head back in the tent. "I hope I do not hear the sound of no counting! From the top, please."

Bagheera groaned lengthily and started over. "Nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine..."

**

* * *

**

Karnage led the way with a lantern, though they truly had no sense of where they were going. Trudging through the jungle again was sickeningly familiar, but this time the sack of gold relics he had hoisted on his shoulder made it seem not so bad. Behind him, Kit had not stopped complaining about what they had just done, and drug his share of the load at his side, having to use much more effort to carry it along than his companion.

"That's _not _why I helped you get away," Kit said. "You just couldn't get out of there without doing something like that."

Karnage rolled his eyes. At that point he had silently weathered the boy's grumbling for quite awhile, and finally turned to stop him. "Look in your bag," he said.

"Why? I know what's in here."

"You know, but you don't _know_," said Karnage. "Do it!"

Kit scowled and stretched open the top of the duffle bag. "So, it's a bunch of... gold stuff." His voice softened. "Really shiny, valuable, gold stuff."

"And it is yours, just what you wanted. So do me one favor, will you?"

It was a bit hard for Kit to take his eyes away from adoring the loot to look up. "What?"

"_Shut up_!" yelled Karnage.

Kit nearly fell over backwards. He did stop complaining as they moved along... but only out loud.

Soon the light of dawn came, struggling to shine though the breaks in the clouds. The rain had eased, but only so much that it was not pouring in sheets.

They approached a great ravine, one that they had seen once before in a different area. As they looked over its edge, they held it contemptuous regard, more so than the time they had tried to cross it three days prior. This time, the powerful river at its bottom was swollen to new heights, and ever so much faster. Tall, white-capped waves crashed against each other in mass chaos.

"That's gotta be the river Rupo was talking about," Kit said. "We don't have to cross it, though. If we follow it downstream, we'll hit the coast. We'll find some towns there."

They traveled along the edge of the ravine, following the river, and soon their path was blocked by a smaller river that jetted over the cliff in a waterfall. It was narrow and shallow, perhaps a stream that had been greatly strengthened by the storm, but it was very swift.

Karnage stepped into it first, the water up to his knees at most, not thinking much of it until he almost lost his footing. The ground was made in uneven stones, covered in moss. He stepped slower and carefully, and saw that Kit was about to be past his waist in the water. "Give me your hand, boy. Take my arm."

"I don't need you to hold my hand," snapped Kit.

"Then give me your bag, you belly-aching baboon! If you fall, why lose the treasure?"

Kit stubbed his toe on a stone and nearly lost his balance. He stuck his tongue out in reply to Karnage's 'I told you so' smirk, but gave him the bag he carried, glad at least to be relieved of its burden for a moment.

"I got this," the cub said; one further step and the swift water was up to his chest. "Let's go-whoops!" Kit missed a step over a rock. Karnage had barely noticed the splash behind him, saw but in a flash Kit's arms swinging out from the water to grab hold of anything. In a blink, Kit was gone. His cry was heard only faintly as he plummeted into the river.

"Boy!" hollered Karnage. He had just made it to the other side with both bags of loot. An unwelcome choice suddenly demanded his decision, where he had plenty of gold in his hands, and he was certain he would make it back to Pirate Island; or, he could jump into a river, and a deadly one at that. Those facts being as they were, it made him boiling mad to consider what he was going to do. "Oooh, that whelp going to _pay _for this!"

He ditched the bags of treasure and dove, head-first and skillfully, into the icy and raging river below.

Over the huge crests, Karnage could barely see Kit, catching only a glimpse of him flailing every few seconds. He also saw that the river was about to bend against a piled mountain of broken and jagged boulders. Karnage swam with all his might, trying to catch up with him before the rocks came, but the distance between them was great. When he last looked ahead, he saw Kit slam into the rocks and disappear below the surface.

Karnage braced himself for the impact, clasped onto one of the rocks with both arms just before his face collided with it, then dangled against the current by holding tight to the rocks with one hand, and with the other he swiped several times underneath to find Kit. His claws barely hooked on to the boy's sweater, and he was able to yank him back up.

Karnage held Kit's head up over his chest while backstroking until the walls of the ravine finally gave way to a shoreline. He crawled onto the river bank, his hands and knees digging deeply into the soft, muddy silt, and pushed Kit away angrily.

"You have the brains of a toe blister!" he yelled, in between coughs. "Not one minu-_ette _ago, I had a fortune in my hands! _Now _look! Give me one good reason why I should not break your behindular quarters with my boot!"

He realized not only was Kit not talking back, he was not as much as coughing. He was face-down in the mud and not moving.

"Boy...?" Karnage poked him on the arm, then once more, much harder. There was no response. "_Boy_?"

He rolled Kit on his back, saw his forehead was scraped and bleeding, and his lips were pale blue; he was not breathing. Karnage shouted at him and tapped him on the cheek; when that didn't work, he grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "No, no you don't! Wake up! Boy! You wake up _now_!"

Nothing was working. Quickly Karnage stacked the heels of his hands over Kit's chest and pushed. "_Breathe _you stubborn bullheaded bear," he grunted. "You hear me? Wake up so I can make you _wish _you were dead!" He gave several rapid thrusts until his arms were tired and sore; he slowed, and eventually stopped. Kit lay still, yielding no response.

Fiercely, Karnage pushed on Kit's chest three more times, then slammed his fist hard into the mud. "Well good for you! Come this far, and there you go! Just like you, boy, always...!" His voice trailed off. "... always running away."

Karnage flopped on his backside, slouched over by the weight of defeat, his head bowed low. He squeezed Kit's arm, and spoke softly, under rolling thunder. "You just give up everything you would be..."

And then, his heart grew warm, rekindled in the thoughts of what he once regarded of the boy as the street rat taken under his wing with the potential to be one of the best of pirates, his own protege, and the only one to ever look up to him.

Under the rain, the numbing chill, the roar of the river, the endless maze of trees... a smoldering anger flickered in Karnage's eyes, yearning for the entire cursed jungle to be smote to ashes and spat upon. Until that happened, he was not about to let the jungle win.

"I won't let you," Karnage said, hoarsely. He slouched closer to Kit's ear, the rain streaming from his chin. "Listen to me, Kit Cloudkicker, you have _pirate _in you, like me! I know what it is! We are pirates because we say nothing will rob us of our freedom, nothing will stand in the way of what we want, and we _live _to laugh at the world when it tries to stand in our way! They cannot kill us because we refuse to die!"

Once more, Karnage put both hands over Kit's chest and pushed again and again. "You better start refusing!" he shouted. From the corner of his eye he thought he might have saw the boy's finger twitch, though it could have been the splatter of the rain in the mud. He cursed and yelled at Kit further, ordering him to come to.

At last Kit suddenly coughed, spit out water, and began gasping. Just as soon, Karnage collapsed wearily on his side, and he breathed a little easier himself, having felt a crushing burden lifted from his shoulders. "Boy? Can you hear me? So I can _yell _at you now?"

There was no reply. Kit stirred woozily as the color came back to his lips. His eyes were glazed and he began shivering. Karnage tried to sit him up, but the boy just was not waking. The blood on his brow swept past his ears and trickled down his cheek.

A lightning bolt flashed bright overhead with a blasting crack of thunder. Shelter was a must, anything to get out of the rain. "H'okay we do it this way, then..." Karnage wiped away the water soaked to his cheeks, took Kit in his arms, and staggered down the brink of the mighty river.

**

* * *

**

Around eight o'clock that morning, coming down a shallow slope of land where the trees had begun to thin out, Don Karnage finally saw the dark gray of the stormy sea low in the horizon. The leggings of his britches were blackened in mud because he had he had stumbled to his knees several times. Cramps in his back and arms grew terrible, though he was driven not to stop until he reached some bastian of civilization; he carried Kit over his right shoulder, as he had been since pulling the boy from the river.

He found a rugged path cut through the foliage that brought him to an old, abandoned estate; it sat on a clearing on a rocky plateau overlooking a small town near the beach. It was once a mansion, but only a burned skeleton of its framework was left to imagine its former splendor, now only a sullen memory lost in tall grass and unkempt overgrowth.

There was a wooden storeroom close to it, and it had been spared being consumed by flame. Its door was open and Karnage was not slow to get inside; if anything good about it, it was at last a reprise from the rain.

Kit began to move, groaning quietly.

"Almost there," panted Karnage, making a final sprint through the door.

A startled flock of birds flew over his head as he plodded inside. The roof leaked, the floor creaked and was flooded to his ankles, yet it was still more of a comfort than standing under the bare elements. The room was dark and laden with cobwebs. It had been emptied long ago, but a few items remained left behind; nothing significant, a box of salt and flower here and there, some gardening tools, and an old tattered stack of hay. A discarded bureau mirror leaned against the corner, cracked from end to end in several places.

Karnage went to set Kit down on the hay as a makeshift bed, and suddenly noticed that Kit was absently clinging to him, with his arms wrapped warmly around his neck. It stunned him for a moment, realizing Kit was hugging him, but over how miserable he felt, it made him blush a little, and smile just a bit. It was the way it should have always been, he thought, what he had wanted, to be the boy's hero, everything his protege adored and admired.

Kit squeezed him tighter, nuzzling his shoulder. Groggily, he whispered, "Baloo?"

Karnage was stung; he started as if a dagger had been plunged into his chest and he nearly fumbled Kit to the floor.

Kit slowly opened his eyes, though just a little. "What happened?"

"Just... rest," said Karnage; he laid him on the stack of hay and gestured for him to be quiet. While Kit lay still, Karnage sat near his feet, with his back turned to him. He blinked a lot, head bent above his knees, like he had the wind knocked out of him and he never knew what had hit him. He kept hearing the same thing echo in his mind: _'...Baloo?'_

As it all settled in, he grew angry. His thoughts were clouded in dark and grave promises for the next time he ever saw that loser of a pilot. As the moments past, he could not think of anything else... not just the name, but how Kit had said it, so longingly. He could not grasp it, the absurdity, why of all people to look up to that fat gray bear... why it was not him.

He caught his reflection in the old mirror in the corner, fractured in a web of many cracks. He straightened his ripped and threadbare coat, took a deep breath, and tried to shrug off the moment before, thinking of who he was, the infamous pirate captain, a legend who had far more important matters to concern himself with than to be jealous of childish affection.

He leaned in close to the mirror to smooth the fur on his face, but there was the whisper of Kit's voice again, and he happened to look into the eyes of the ruthless pirate who once tried so direly to end the boy's life for being a traitor... he remembered the anger he seethed over with when that pilot Baloo sprang from out of nowhere and saved the boy's life... the audacity he felt that anyone would try so hard to save a worthless backstabber... the audacity that anyone could love the boy enough to do so.

For once, Karnage had to look away from the mirror. A pang of guilt sank sickly into his gut. For everything he had ever gained, ill-gotten or not, he realized then what he had thrown away.


	11. Adventures in Alpacito City

**Chapter 11**

**Adventures in Alpacito City**

The storm had waned in the late morning, and by noon was gone. Lingering gray clouds parted and allowed beams of sunshine to touch rain-lashed soil.

In the old storehouse, Kit stared at the drips leaking from the ceiling, wondering where he was and how he got there. All he could tell was that it must not had been a very pleasant trip, judging how his forehead throbbed and chest ached. He was alone, though the door was wide open.

He was about to call for Karnage, but began to cough, and he had a difficult time stopping. His head was dizzy and he felt like he could sleep for hours on end yet. He lightly caressed his brow and cringed at the sting of the gash there.

Eventually he padded through the cold water on the floor and squinted in the sunlight when he stepped outside. Don Karnage sat yawning on the remains of a thick stone fence that bordered the front of the estate. He looked out toward the coast, and did not acknowledge Kit as he approached.

"What happened?" asked Kit.

Karnage only grimaced and hunched over a little further.

Kit waited for him to speak, or at least glance at him, but the pirate did neither. "Hey, can't you hear me? What's wrong?"

"What's wrong," Karnage scoffed. "_You _are what's wrong."

"I don't even know what happened!" argued Kit.

"And you never will," growled Karnage.

Kit pondered him for a moment, but at length the temperamental reply was all the explanation he was going to get. He sighed and walked away, trying to piece it all together himself; he only remembered falling into the river, Karnage warning him about it just beforehand, and the last thing he saw, bobbing in the throws of the stormy current, those big rocks... After that it dawned on him rather easily, though with not the least bit of pride, why he was there and the loot was not.

Embarrassed and fidgeting with his fingers, Kit hesitated to say some means of thanks, but somehow he just could not. He had a visceral twinge that he owed a debt he would not live down anytime soon. Karnage was silent and statue-like, and Kit figured he would just leave him alone for awhile.

"How well can you walk?" Karnage asked suddenly.

"Uh... fine," replied Kit quietly. He walked back to the fence, a bit unsteadily still as he tried to shake off the grogginess. "I'm ready to go whenever you are."

"And your head?"

"It's... a little sore," Kit said, lowering his eyes.

"You need it bandaged."

"Yeah, but I'll be okay for now. What's our next move?"

Karnage pointed for Kit to go around to the front of the fence. "Come look."

As Kit did, Karnage hopped down and stood behind him.

"It's a town!" Kit exclaimed. "We're almost out of here!"

"Take a _good _look," said Karnage, pointing over Kit's shoulder into the far distance.

Kit leaned forward, scanning the horizon carefully. There were many boats in the ocean. "At what?"

That was when Karnage wound his foot back and gave Kit a swift kick in the rear.

"_Ow_!" Kit backed away from him, rubbing his seat. "What was _that _for?"

"You never gave me a good reason!"

**

* * *

**

The town on the coast was divided by a quiet, two-lane highway, where every now and then a cargo-laden truck or touring automobile passed through on their way to Alpacito City. A clustered string of shoddy buildings bordered the highway on either side, and beyond them the beach was wrapped in rocky jetties with many fishing boats departing for the open sea.

Those tending their rickety homes gave many an inquisitive stare to the two strangers sweeping their feet through the town's outskirts. At the highway, Kit and Karnage stopped at a gas station; Kit went to the restroom to wash his face, while Karnage leaned around the corner of the building and studied their situation.

There was not an airplane to be seen, and Karnage found that miffing, for he had no intention to steal a boat and sail back to Pirate Island. However, he did spy two mud-splattered, open-top Alpacatan army patrol jeeps parked at a saloon across the street, and that was at least a little promising. The winding highway up the coast would take them straight to the big city.

"Forget that," said Kit, cringing as he came around the back of the building. "I've seen bull pens cleaner than what's in there!"

"Hush, boy," said Karnage, "I am thinking."

"Oh, so sorry," Kit drawled. An alluring scent captured his nose, and he began sniffing about, and he started salivating. He noted a diner next to the saloon, slightly hidden behind a few parked trucks. "Mmm, is that _bacon_?"

"Never mind that for now," Karnage said.

"Tell that to my stomach," sulked Kit. "What are you looking at, anyway?"

"You ever steal a car?"

"Um, no..."

"Well then," Karnage smirked. "You always remember your first!"

"Oh yeah, I'm gonna _cherish _these memories."

Karnage darted across the highway toward the jeeps. "This way!"

"Wait!" Kit ran after him, reaching for his coattail stub to slow him down. "They're gonna see us!"

Once at the lead jeep, Karnage slowed and casually looked around, particularly at the windows and swinging door of the saloon. No one was watching. Unexpectedly, but much to his delight, a rifle and several ammunition clips were carelessly left laying on the back seat. "Get in, boy," he hissed.

"Now wait a minute," Kit warned. "What if we can't get away? The last thing we need is a whole _army _on our-hey!"

Karnage was not in the negotiating kind of mood. He promptly picked the boy up and dumped him head-first into the passenger seat. While Kit expelled livid grumbles and squirmed rightside up, Karnage reached for the rifle, but was startled when the saloon's doors swung open.

Richter had stepped outside, wiping his chin. Between him and Karnage, it was difficult to tell who was more shocked to see whom suddenly standing there.

"What, again?" the pirate exclaimed. With no hesitation he aimed the rifle and began firing over Kit's head. "Start the car, boy!" he yelled. "Now!" At the moment, however, Kit was too busy yelping and keeping his ears covered.

Richter swore, dove sideways and dodged the incoming bullets. He took a roll on the ground, sprang to his knee, and lobbed a grenade.

With wide eyes Karnage watched the grenade fly right toward his nose; he dropped the rifle into the jeep and caught the grenade mid-air with both hands. At that, he raised it over his head like he had just won a trophy. "Ha! What do you think about _that_, you-!"

"_Grenade_!" shouted Kit.

"Oh!" started Karnage. "I mean, _I am knowing that_!" With a great heave he threw it aimlessly away, across the highway, and all watched where it landed: between the service pumps of the gas station.

Karnage leapt into the jeep, which knocked Kit under the steering wheel. They both ducked and braced themselves. The explosion was bursting loud and hot. A ball of flame rolled far skyward, painting the sky red, and pieces of scrap metal rained rained over the highway.

When the roar of the blast faded, Kit and Karnage peered over the door of the jeep, awed at the destruction.

The gas station was gone, its pumps and the walls of its service shop blown to smithereens; the only thing left standing was the clerk, a lion who, charred black save for the whites of his dazed eyes, wondered what the heck had just happened.

"Look what you did," gasped Kit.

"Yes..." said Karnage thoughtfully. "And I tell you, after a week like this... _it felt wonderful_!"

Random gunshots began spewing from the saloon, and in a beat the Alpacatan soldiers were at the stoop, panicked and drunk, firing their pistols at anything that moved. Richter took quick cover behind the second jeep, and Karnage aimed his rifle from side to side at all of them.

"Boy! Get this fender-bending bucket of bolts moving!" he yelled.

"Me?" Kit glanced anxiously across the meters on the dashboard. They were not quite like the things he knew from airplanes. "But I don't know how to...!" Any doubts he had were quickly brushed aside when as a bullet hit the windshield and shattered it. "_Cripes_!" he screamed. Taken the steering wheel with both hands, locking his fingers in a grip tight enough to strangle a rhino, he was about to figure out this driving business real quick.

With his foot raised he kicked at the ignition button on the dash again and again until the jeep's engine turned over. Then he slid off the seat, never taking his hands from the wheel, and pummeled one of the pedals with his heel. That was about the extent he ever learned about driving, and it wasn't doing him a lick of good.

"It's not moving!" he cried. "What do I do?"

Karnage squeezed off a few more rounds to keep Richter at bay, and jerked the gear shift between the seats two notches forward. "_Now _go!"

Kit planted his foot down, but the engine remained idle. "Why isn't it working!"

"The _other _pedal, you dimwitted dingleberry!"

Seething at that, Kit jumped off the brake and _stomped _on the accelerator with both feet. He could not even see over the steering wheel, but he must have done something right: the engine howled and the tires screeched and peeled in place, kicking up thick black smoke and the stench of seared rubber. Karnage hugged onto the back of the seat and gulped... what did he just get himself into?

The jeep burst onto the highway at great speed, leaving dust and skidmarks in its wake, and for all Karnage knew, his eyebrows had probably been left behind as well. He was flipped over into the back seat. "Wait, boy, bad idea!" he pleaded, lunging to grab hold of the steering wheel. "_Stoooooop_!"

With the shouting right in his ear, Kit panicked and jumped on the brake; the jeep came to a screeching halt and Karnage took a tumble into the broken windshield. He cupped his forehead and glowered at the boy. "Just to check, you _are _on my side, yes?"

Kit gave him a nasty look and stuck out his tongue.

"Watch it," warned Karnage. "And move over so _I_ can...!" He suddenly saw, behind them, that Richter had hunched inside and commandeered the second jeep, and was speeding in their direction. "What are you stopping for? Go go go!"

"Stop, go, stop, go," Kit fumed, and jumped on the accelerator again. "Make up your mind already!"

The jeep sped off, and Karnage turned to and fro, his ears flapping in the wind, juggling between shooting at Richter and sparing a hand to help steer. Most of his shots were wide misses, but some pelted Richter's jeep on the hood and front fender, enough to where Richter was forced to slow down, but it bought them little space. Richter was fast on their tail.

A horn was blaring from a distance, and it kept blaring, suddenly much louder and closer. Karnage glanced ahead, where the grill of a big truck was aimed for his nose. "Watch out, boy!" He pulled the steering wheel just in time to swerve out of the way.

"I can't _see_!" cried Kit, his voice cracking. He was rubbernecking for all he was worth.

"Stand up, just steer!" said Karnage. He did not turn away from or point the rifle at anything but Richter, but he leaned on the passenger seat on his left knee planted the back of his right heel on the accelerator.

Kit stood up on the seat and took the wheel like a captain taking a helm of a galleon, and once he could finally see over the dash, he wanted to see no more! The highway was about to take a winding right turn around a high cliff, and to its left was nothing but a lesser precipice that dropped straight into the sand dunes of the coast. The speedometer crept further to its limit. "Whoa, Captain, slow down! Slow down!"

"I said _steer_!" ordered Karnage. He was bent over the rifle, mustering a careful aim right between Richer's eyes as the jeeps drew closer together. All else he ignored of sight and sound, concentrating only on this one blessed shot to finally rid himself of the grizzly once and for all.

"Brakes! Brakes!" Kit shouted. The bend was imminent... the jeep zipped by several warning signs posted on the highway's shoulder, too fast to see what they read, but one was yellow, one was red, and one was black with a skull and crossbones. "We're gonna crash!"

"I have you now," Karnage muttered, with the reticle on the gun's muzzle over Richter's face. He squeezed the trigger... Richter suddenly whisked away from his sight. So did the road.

On the turn, Kit screamed and spun the wheel erratically to keep from hitting the cliffs on the right, but the jeep whipped around in a fishtail and rolled off the highway, falling upside-down onto sand dunes below in a thick stretch of beach grass.

In a moment Richter had pulled over and looked down upon the wreckage. The engine hissed and smoked, and the tires were still spinning. There was no sign of his bounty, though he knew they could not have had the time to flee.

He leapt onto the beach, bent low with his legs, and flipped the overturned jeep on its tires. There Kit was, laying still with his face in the sand. But where was Karnage? Richter scanned the waving beach grass stalks, listening for the slightest snap of a twig.

Then he heard a sudden rustle... it was Kit, and the boy had the rifle pointed at his chest. Richter took a step back and kept his hands open and in front of him. "Nice, kid. Now what do you think you're gonna do with that?"

"Guess that depends on what you think _you're _gonna do," replied Kit.

"Put it down, brat, and I'll let you go. You're nothing to me."

"Y-you're not touching Karnage," said Kit. The muzzle of the rifle was shaking as were his hands, and beads of sweat dripped from his brow. "I'll shoot, I swear. Just go away!"

"Hard to make threats when you're too scared to live up to them, isn't it," Richter smirked. "You never shot a gun before, have you? Pirates never taught you?" He chuckled, and subtlety stepped forward as he spoke. "Not much of a pirate, huh? That why you started hanging out with fatso instead? The poor little boy couldn't toughen up like the big guys?"

Kit's teeth were bared. "If you think you're faster than a bullet, then come one inch closer!"

Richter paused and frowned, then took a swipe for the rifle. Kit shut his eyes and pulled the trigger, and they both flinched. But the gun had only clicked, its last bullet already spent.

"That's your last mistake, kid!" Richter snatched the rifle by the muzzle and wound it back to clobber Kit with as a club, but Karnage charged from the tall grass and tackled the big bear's knee. It surprised Richter, but Karnage may as well have run his shoulder into the post of a street light; Richter barely budged. Immediately he cuffed the pirate squarely over his head, and Karnage's chin hit the ground like a rivet under a jackhammer.

"It ends here, rodent," the grizzly snarled. Throwing the rifle aside, he armed his machete, reached and held Karnage's head up by the ear, then held the long, razor-like blade for the pirate to see. Though seeing stars before his eyes, Karnage was fumbling for something about his coat pockets and tattered red sash.

Richter was suddenly pelted in the cheek by a stone. "Hey gruesome, over here!" shouted Kit. He threw another rock and waved his arms. "Why don't you come and get me?"

"Ha! Don't worry, you're turn's comin' right up." Richter pressed the machete under Karnage's throat, not taking his cold stare away from Kit. "But first, why don't see what it looks like when I do it to him."

From the back of his sash, Karnage pulled the hunting knife they took from the camp and slashed it against Richter's hand. The grizzly shouted, dropped the machete and Karnage lunged at his legs, stabbing the hunting knife into Richter's thigh, right were the varan had scarred him.

"Awright!" cheered Kit. "Go Captain, go!"

Richter howled with pain, and Karnage tried to dart away from his grasp, but Richter was quick not to give up. He threw himself at Karnage and caught him by the ankle, and crawled over him with the knife stuck in his leg. "You pissant! Nothing's gonna save you from me!" he roared. His eyes were dark, red, and furious, and there were new veins throbbing over his brow. "You wanna see?"

If for no other reason than just to prove he could, Richter defied the crippling pain in his thigh and pulled himself and Karnage up, and though he leg limped and wobbled as if it was about to buckle, he lifted Karnage over the grass and threw him high against the cliff wall, pinning his neck with his elbow and forearm. With a grunt, he plucked the knife from his thigh with the other hand. "I'm gonna rip your rotten guts out and feed 'em to you!"

Kit had quite too few options to buy Karnage time, but he was not about to just stand there. He dug out his battered and crumpled airfoil from his sweater, wound it around like a Olympic discus and hurled it, whacking Richter in the back of the head.

"Ow! Kid, I'm gonna _enjoy _stomping you in the ground!"

With all his strength, Karnage could not pry Richter's arm from his throat... but his legs were free, and while Richter had his eyes on Kit, far be it from any self-respecting pirate not to render a low blow when the opportunity was duly presented.

_*thwup!*_

Karnage kicked Richter swiftly between the legs, and it was effective, for Richter lost the wind in his lungs, went cross-eyed and hunched over, groaning, but still didn't let go. So...

_*thwup!*_

Karnage kicked him again. That time, Richter fell to his knees and doubled-over in a heap of agony.

"Here! Catch!" Kit ran to pick up his airfoil and tossed it over to Karnage, who took it and bashed it into Richter's nose, and the grizzly was finally toppled to the dirt, where he curled up on his side.

Panting and staggering, Karnage rubbed his neck. "_That_, my boy, is how you nail a numbskull on the noggin!"

"Awesome!" Kit ran to him with arms wide open, but stopped himself just shy of actually touching him. "I mean, I'm glad you're okay."

A smug grin brightened Karnage's ruffled countenance. "Hpmh. A cornered painter fights most fiercely when backed up into... into, ehrm... you know... oh, forget it." He handed Kit back his airfoil after trying to bend it with his fingers as to test its strength; whatever it was made out of, he wasn't unfamiliar with how it felt to be struck with it himself. "Here. It still breaks easy."

Richter was attempting to get up, coughing up a dust storm on the sand, but he was very slow, and had a difficult time just to straighten himself out. He did, however, reach for his machete.

"Where did the gun go?" asked Karnage.

"He threw it in the bushes," Kit replied. "But look, his car's still there on the road! Let's grab it before he gets up!"

Karnage nodded. "Get in," he said, but was quick to add, "And don't you _touch a thing_!"

A mechanical hum rolled from the sky, from over the ocean, and it was regarded like music to the ears of Kit and Karnage, wholeheartedly capturing their attention. It was a transport seaplane, swooping down from the clouds, descending toward Alpacito. Its distinct three-propeller design was undoubtedly belonging to Shere Khan's fleet.

For the moment, they shared no words. Kit smiled, dreamily and enraptured, as if he had just seen his first plane and fallen in love with flying all over again. Karnage was smiling, too, toothily and nearly salivating. He was falling in love with the thought of stealing it.

"I'm gonna kill you," coughed Richter. He wasn't going anywhere fast. "I'll hunt you down. If it's the last thing I ever do..."

"Rest assured, whenever you try, it _will _be," said Karnage. He snorted and kicked sand at Richter's head, but as on cue, the instant his foot swiped the ground, the earth suddenly shook, and there was an echo of a great roar in the wind, deeper than thunder, and with a hard chill, Kit and Karnage recognized it as the fiery breath they had heard in Rhamastan. Far away into the jungle, where, even from the coast, mighty the broad summit of Mount Seren rose over the treeline, and there was smoke rising from it.

"You don't think...?" Kit began to ask.

"Just a volcano doing what it does," replied Karnage.

They did not speak of it further, but they did hurry all the more to the jeep and away down the highway.

**

* * *

**

Once the city of Alpacito was in sight, Kit and Karnage left the jeep off the side of the road and walked the rest of the way, lest any soldiers see th vehicle and get suspicious, such as those who where loitering at the city's threshold around an idling Thembrian tank.

"What's the deal with this place and their guns?" asked Kit; at Karnage's insistence, they trekked away from the highway and stole into the city through the impoverished shacks that spawled close to the border of the jungle, a sheer wall of trees.

"For me, in most likeliness," said Karnage.

"You mean you heisted here more than that one time?"

"Since when does it take more than once?"

Alpacito had no airfield nearby, and Karnage led the long walk toward the west edge of the city, toward the marina, the one place Khan's plane had to land. The city was in a mild uproar; while most people went on with their business, many clamored speculations over the jolts in the ground felt every now and then, and the hazy smoke spreading thinly in the sky over the jungle. Sentries had taken posts on the top of buildings, watching the distance with binoculars.

They crossed the boulevard that Kit recognized would further led to the museum downtown, and the thought did not escape him that, if he had made a different choice the night before, he would more than likely be in that museum, waiting for Baloo to come pick him up. Empty-handed though he would be, he would have been on his way home, safe, and not fearing an uncertainty of what all he was walking into by following Karnage.

Then he regarded the captain; he did not look back to see if Kit was following or not, just marched on as a soldier on a mission, pushing by those in his way, his strides slowed by weariness but long, purposeful and confident, like an old veteran at his game, free of the burden of fear or a second guess.

It was catching. In Karnage's shadow, it was becoming hard to worry about an ill twist fate might throw in their path next, and doubts faded with the memory of his old mentor, where, standing once by him, no achievement in the world seemed impossible. He did not know how just yet, but in his heart he sensed that the trove of golden trinkets in the mountains was as good as theirs.

Nearer to the marina, they soon meshed into a sea of people. The markets were in full swing, and a wide hub of tents and carts cluttered an open field in the heart of the city. The air was still, warm, and stank of briny salt water and freshly gutted fish. The people were noisy, solicitation loud and unabashed, musicians strumming guitars and blowing horns in hopes of filling their jars with donations, fresh mud sloshed abundantly from the street gutters, and if one was not careful to dodge, there was a ever-present danger of being elbowed by hagglers fighting over merchandise. Yet, there was not a tree or vine in sight, which in its own way for these two weary survivors was absolutely delightful.

They cut their way to a sidewalk on the fringes of the crowd, pressed against a line of old brownstone buildings housing such things as a dilapidated motel and pawn shop. Down that way a bit, Karnage began sniffing the air, and his ears perked up; amidst all the foul odors around them, something pleasant lured his appetite. It was coming from a delicatessen store on the corner of the block, and he followed his nose.

"Chorizo," he said, smacking his lips. He waited a beat for Kit to catch up beside him. "You said you were hungry, yes?"

"Starving's more like it," said Kit, catching a wiff of the same aroma.

"You know what you must do, then," said Karnage, as they peered into the store's big, grimy window; they saw the counter and shelves packed with meats, cheeses and loafs of bread, and sandwiches stacked on a plate by the register... and two Alpacatan soldiers sat at a small table in the front, having lunch.

"You mean swipe something? _I'm _not going in there!" said Kit. "Don't you see those guards?"

Karnage shushed him and took him by the shoulder away from the window. "No no, boy, what do I tell you, when you steal, steal _smart_," he said, rubbing his thumb and fingertips together. "Get money, pay for it. Look for a bozo to bamboozle!"

Kit sighed. "Already thought of that. I think I'll just be hungry for awhile." However, the empty pang in his tummy was in fierce protest of the notion. "Darn it..."

"We need to _eat_! No reason we should have to wait. You are _good _at this, remember? The thrill of the hunt, yes-no? Stay low, and watch for the gun-totting goons." While Karnage scouted around for likely prospects, Kit fell behind, and was obviously wrestling with his thoughts. "What _now_?"

"Hold on a minute," Kit said. "Hungry and stealing on the street isn't exactly where I want to be again."

"Yes, yes, get over it," was Karnage's advice. His eyes narrowed at a nearby soldier patrolling the markets, and watched him unabashedly push a fruit merchant aside and took a mango for himself. "Look around you. _Everyone _here is a thief, a liar, and swindler."

"That... that doesn't make it right," said Kit.

"_Right_? Coming from a boy who just stole two bags of gold and a car?"

Kit's eyes narrowed at him. "That's just low."

Karnage grumbled under his breath, annoyed. He pointed to a nearby booth selling poultry. "Why not go stand over there, with the _other _chickens!"

"Chicken nothing," Kit scowled. "I could sneak away with your socks without touching your shoes! _If_ I wanted to..."

"_If_, humph!" Karnage folded his arms and turned his nose up at him. "Look at you, always the scaredy-bear! Scared of getting caught, scared of what his fool of a friend might think of him if he knew! What happened to you, boy?"

"I'm not afraid of _anything_!" seethed Kit.

"You are afraid you might _like _it. How many times do I tell you, _anything _you want you can take! But go ahead, go hungry for all I care!"

"You don't know what you're talking about! And what do you know besides how to shoot at airplanes? You just want me to pick some pockets for _you_, 'cause you're hungry too!"

"_Excuse_?" Karnage rubbed his finger in his ear as if trying to unplug it, and leaned in closer to his face to keep their conversation a bit more inconspicuous. "Are you in-situating that Don Ka_rrr_nage needs _you _to pick a pocket for him?"

"When's the last time _you _even tried it?" asked Kit, defiantly. "Did they even have wallets back then, or did they just carry around coin pouches?"

"Let me be clear," snarled Karnage. "_I_ can perfectly pick a peck of pockets before _you _have a single pocket picked!"

Kit wiped a bit of wolf spittle form his nose. "You wanna bet?"

"Ha!" Karnage waved him off. "Always good for a laugh, boy."

"That does it," Kit said, and pushed his sleeves up. "Every man for himself! Don't go crying when I'm having a feast and you're being hauled away to jail!" In a huff, Kit pushed past Karnage and disappeared into the crowd. Karnage smirked, and he might have pat himself on the back for a job well done... had he not been likely to cramp up on the sidewalk like a pretzel. However, he still had work to do. After all, a wager of bragging rights had been made...

**

* * *

**A half hour past, and for certain, Kit found that the days when he was able to ever-so slyly sneak a wallet from an unsuspecting rube's person were long gone. To do it without getting caught took a fine-tuned sense of timing and cunning, and he had not exactly been practicing while living in Cape Suzette.

He thought Karnage was seemingly correct about his general assessment of the city's crowd... so many dark faces in the markets looked so shady that, as he winded though the people, he couldn't so much concentrate on finding a suitable opportunity so much that he was on his own guard to make sure he wasn't a pickpocket victim himself... and he didn't even _have _pockets.

Kit kept his head ducked low and moved around swiftly, weaving around legs and merchant tents to shake off the suspicious glances he received from some of the more street-savvy characters prowling around for likely the same reason he was. As dirty, tattered, and banged-up as he had been this last week, hardly anyone in the crowd look as bad as he did, and it was likely obvious he was not there for shopping... at least in the conventional sense.

Soon Kit came to an area where a crowd had huddled together with commotion, like they were trying to catch a glimpse of some celebrity, but this was no back lot in Starrywood. Curiosity got the better of him and he decided to take a peek at what all the ado was about.

He was quite smaller than most, and had not much trouble squeezing his way to the front, where he saw a wealthy tigress browsing through wooden furniture, blouses, and cheap jewelry. She wore heavy red lipstick, a flowing white fur coat, and enough gold and gems around her neck, wrists, and fingers that one could wonder how she was still able to stand up under all that weight. She was surrounded by bodyguards in black suits, and one other person, a cougar who was notably too pudgy and short to be a guard, but under his big glasses he had a mouth on him, loud and fast-talking, such as he may have missed his calling to be a circus barker.

"Her Grace, the Duquesa, _adores _being here with you," said the cougar, to the crowd at large. "Let the world see! Our city is safe! Our city cares for all!"

Kit tuned the cougar out and regarded the lady. Her lipstick painted a subtle, solid grin, but her eyes were utterly bored and disgusted. She loathed putting on such a facade of interest. He watched as she half-heartedly pointed at a colorful woven rug, cracking a forced smile that made her face wrinkle. One of the guards quickly snatched the rug and held it beside her, and she went to pay for it, while the merchant looked on with timidity and fear. That's when Kit noticed her purse... it was large, open, and looked full, but her wallet was carelessly left right on top, and entirely reachable.

Perhaps he was not the only one to notice. The crowd began to tighten a circle around the lady, reaching forward and yelling a myriad of things at her at once, merchants raised their goods and bade for her attention, and soon her bodyguards were quite busy keeping people at a distance.

Kit was muscled in closer to her; he ducked low, zeroed in on her purse and wiped his fingers against his thighs. His heart was racing, what he was thinking was absolutely insane and he knew it, but it seemed as though her bodyguards were paying attention to everyone except him, and he just had to do it once and get it over with. In a beat he was within a yard of her...

While the bodyguards shoved someone away and inadvertently brushed against the lady, Kit twirled around their legs and, with a very quick swipe, dunked his hand into her purse and yanked out her wallet! But he had not held it for a second before a random street thief batted it out of his hands and ran away with it.

Kit blinked, looking at his empty fingertips. "Wha'? Hey!," he cried. "Thief!" It was a word that caught a lot of attention. Before he knew it, the fellow was pounced on by the bodyguards and taking a fierce beating. "Oh, crud," gasped Kit, and he ran quickly away from there.

He wound up back near where he had last seen Karnage, and come to think of it, he had no idea where Karnage had gone or what he was up to. He clasped his arms wearily against a street lamp and looked around, and eventually he sat down on the muddy curb.

"What am I _doing_," he thought out loud, his face snug in his palms. "I don't care how hungry I am, I don't care what _he _says, I'm not cut out for this any..." The savory scent of food from that deli caught his nose again. "... more."

Like a fish drawn to a shiny lure, Kit padded to the deli, his nose leading the way, and he saw that the guards had left. The door was half open, the counter was unattended... and there were the stack of sandwiches, still sitting by register.

Kit slid inside without touching the door and tiptoed to the counter. The store was empty, the clerk must have been in the back room. The walls were bountiful with a viable rainbow of mouth-watering meats, cheeses, and breads, though the floor was odd. It was blackened with many holes chipped out of it, like it had been scarred several times with explosives.

Kit kept his focus on the sandwiches. Roast beef? Ham? For what it was worth to his grumbling stomach, they could have been full of crabgrass and still delicious. He stopped just short of the counter and listened for the clerk, heard nothing, and with one last glance over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching, he slid the entire plate off the counter, slowly and quietly... but not quietly enough.

"Ah ha!" the clerk cried, and he suddenly sprang up from behind the register and jumped on the counter, pointing the barrel of a shotgun and Kit's nose!

"Whoa!" yelped Kit, and the plate flew from his hands, with the sandwiches falling all over the place in a big mess. "W-wait! This isn't what it looks like!"

The clerk, however, was not one to ask questions first. He scrunched over with his eye staring down the shotgun's barrel, and squeezed the trigger.

Kit screamed and dove forward, just as the blast fired over his head. More holes and burn marks were put into the floor.

"Wait a minute!" pleaded Kit, his ears ringing.

"Ay! Hold still, thief!" the clerk shouted, and he began reloading his weapon with another shell.

Just then a Alpacatan soldier came running into the store. The clerk pointed at Kit, shouting with chilling giddiness, "I caught another one! Thief!"

"He's _nuts_," cried Kit. "I was just looking!"

The soldier sighed and apprehended Kit by his wrist. "H'okay, h'okay, _tranquilízate_! [calm down!]" he told the clerk. "I will take care of the little dog from here."

"Aw, but let me _blast _him," pouted the clerk, as he just finished loading the next shell into his gun.

"No!" insisted the soldier. "No more of that on new laundry day! _Carumba_, how many times do I have to tell you, you and your messy thief shooting! Don't you get tired of mopping your floor?"

From behind, Kit heard Karnage approaching, shouting as he rushed into the store, "Wait! Let the boy go!"

"Who are you?" asked the clerk and soldier together.

"Ehm... I am the boy's _father_," said Karnage.

Kit cringed... how Karnage must have looked to them in his tattered blue coat, making attention for himself, if anything was going to jog their memories of the heist from a year earlier... but when he finally turned to look at the pirate, to his surprise and confusion, he saw he was wearing a new suit: fedora, dress shirt, coat, slacks, the whole bit.

Karnage cleared his throat, and glared at Kit. "_Right_, boy?"

"Uh, right... dad," said Kit hesitantly, and mentally noted to rinse his mouth out with soap.

As Karnage pulled Kit to his side, the clerk and soldier incredulously looked back and forth at the cub and wolf's faces, to which Karnage responded, "Yes, yes, I know... he takes after his mother, uglier than a monkey's armpit, yes? And not much _smarter _than one, either, as you can tell by the naughty things he does!"

"Ugly? You're one to talk," snapped Kit. "Ow!"

Karnage had thumped him on the eyebrow, and grinned very nervously at the soldier. "Now now, you know better than to take that one with me." Then he coughed loudly, covering his mouth and grumbling aside to Kit, "You _want _to get shot?"

"Right now, it wouldn't be so bad," Kit grumbled back.

Karnage resumed with a schmoozing grin, "Eh heh, children today, you know? Perhaps when we get home, I take him over my knee, but he is a _good _boy, no need to take him away!" He pushed Kit in front of him and clamped his hands tight over his shoulders, ready to jostle and squeeze the cooperation out of him if need be. "_Now_, boy, _apologize _to the nice man!"

"Okay, okay," huffed Kit. "I'm sorry, mister."

"De _verdad_, eh? [Oh _really_?]" scowled the clerk. "What about my sandwiches? I demand justice!" He raised his shotgun menacingly. "Throw him in jail or let me _blast _him!"

"Ah! I have just what you need," said Karnage. He took a wallet from his slacks and opened it. "Whoops, that one is empty already," he muttered to himself, then fished out another wallet from his pocket, and that time he produced from it a bundle of cash. "Here, close early today, yes-no?"

Kit could not believe what he was seeing; regardless, it was obvious now who won the pickpocketing wager.

Karnage split the cash between the clerk and the soldier, who were both quite pleased, and the clerk's protests were fast quelled. "The boy will just clean up the mess he made in the nice man's store, and we are on our way," he said, holding the door open for the soldier. "Boy, get busy!"

"This _nice man _with the itchy trigger finger can pick up his own mess," said Kit, and he started stomping toward the door.

Karnage stepped in front of him, his fur bristling from his collar. "_Now_," he hissed.

"Seeing as the debt to society as been repaid, my work here is done," said the soldier, pocketing his bribe. "But from now on, keep an _eye _on your son," he said as he brushed passed Karnage.

As Kit picked up pieces of sandwich from the floor with disgruntled effort, Karnage looked out the window, at the salivating clerk counting his money in its reflection, and at the soldier walking out of sight. "What a city," he said. "So many eyes looking to steal. You never know _who _may be watching."

On cue, the clerk looked up, suddenly became aware of a hundred unseen faces leering at the money through the store walls, and hurried to the back room to put the money away in a safe. Once he was gone, Karnage posted a 'closed' sign on the front door, shut it and locked the deadbolt. "Next time, boy, shut your face and _help_! Now quick, get the curtains!"

"I got your curtains right here!" Kit furiously threw the ruined sandwiches back on the floor and kicked Karnage in the shin.

"Ow!" howled Karnage. In return, he grabbed Kit's ear and gave it a twist.

"Ow!" yelped Kit. He pulled Karnage's fingers off his ear and pulled them apart like a wishbone.

"Ow!" yelled Karnage, and stomped on Kit's toe.

"Ow!" Kit let go of his fingers and hopped around on one foot.

"A simple _thanking _of my marvelous self would do!" said Karnage.

"Thanks? I almost got my head blown off! And that _guava _about you being my dad!"

"Oh, stick a pastrami in it, you whining whelp," said Karnage. "Do you not see what I just did? Once we take care of that moron in the back, we have all the food we want... and a new gun that will help _persuade _Shere Khan's pilot to surrender his plane."

"I lost my appetite," said Kit, crossing his arms.

Karnage sighed and rolled his eyes. "It is not how many times you get caught, but how many times you never give up. You did not do so terribly bad."

"Stop it!" said Kit. "I'm not a thief anymore! And I hate this place. Can't we just hurry up and steal that stupid plane so we can get out of here already?" Realizing what he had just said, and how Karnage suddenly glowed smugly over it, he smacked himself on the forehead.

"Curtains, if you please," grinned Karnage.

"Aw, the heck with it," muttered Kit. Resignedly, he went to the window and pulled the blinds over it.

From outside, the city hustle and bustle went on oblivious to the matters proceeding behind the deli's closed door. Several minutes later, Kit and Karnage stepped out on the sidewalk, their stomachs so stuffed they had to stagger. Kit burped and wiped a last bit of mustered from his lip. "What about the guy? How long do you think until someone finds him tied up back there?"

"Let him eat olive loaf," shrugged Karnage. He had with him the clerk's shotgun, wrapped not-so-inconspicuously from tip to tip in white wax paper. "And remember, if anyone asks, _salami_. Extra large!"

Kit made it a point to keep a few paces away from the pirate. "If anyone asks," he said, "and you actually tell them that, I've never seen you before in my life."

**

* * *

**

They trekked from there to the marina, where they found Khan Enterprises' plane moored at the end of a long dock. One of the pilots stood at the front of the dock, warding any curious passers-by away from the aircraft. He was frequently checking his watch.

"I bet he's waiting for ol' ugly," said Kit, as he and Karnage peered around a stack of crates from a distance. The area was crowded enough to where they did not want the pilot calling for help before they reached the plane, so removing him was going to have to be a crafty endeavor, and they stood for a moment considering their options. Karnage in particular was weary of letting the pilot recognize him and start making a scene.

"If one of us lures him near the plane, away from the others, perhaps no one will notice anything," said Karnage.

"Oh?" Kit raised an eyebrow at him. Every time he heard the words 'one of us', it was always obvious who was being volunteered.

"_One _of us should swim and climb to the other end of the dock," said Karnage.

The raised eyebrow turned into a dirty glare. "Oh?"

Karnage slapped Kit heartily on the back and shoved him forward. "Break a leg, boy! Or, I break one for you. Try not to _drown _this time, yes?"

"Nuh-uh, nothing doing!" said Kit, and, quite pretentiously, he straightened his sweater's sleeves over his shoulders and cracked his knuckles. "_I've _got a _better _idea."

"Oh, _please_," scoffed Karnage. "What would _you _do, ask him to jump off the dock and let us pass?"

"Something like that," said Kit. Before Karnage could stop him, the boy sauntered toward the pilot, and turning back once with a sly grin. "Just watch and learn."

"Boy!" hissed Karnage, "get back here! If you ruin this...!"

Kit approached the dock and began to casually stroll around the pilot. "Hey!" the panther exclaimed. "Where do you think _you're _going?"

Kit blinked at him like he had just now noticed him standing there. "To find my lucky penny. What else?"

"Well, look somewhere else," said the pilot. "This dock is off limits, and there ain't no lucky pennies anywhere near it."

Meanwhile, Karnage groaned and rested his forehead against the top crate. "Lucky... penny. Note to marvelous self: kick the boy _harder _next time."

Kit continued with the pilot, "But it has to be! I lost it this morning, right around this dock."

"Not my problem," said the pilot, stepping in front of the boy.

Suddenly, Kit grabbed onto the bottom of his uniformed shirt and pleaded with him, "No! It's lost! You gotta help me find it!"

"What the..." sputtered the pilot, and he pushed Kit away. "What the heck is _wrong _with you? Hey, weren't you the kid at Louie's...?"

Then Kit looked up at the sky, like he had just heard a voice calling. "What? No, please, I'll find it! Just give me a few more minutes!"

The pilot looked up as well. "What... _who_... are you talking to?"

"No time to explain!" said Kit frantically, and he latched onto the pilot's shirt again. "Quick, you gotta help me! When I don't have my lucky penny, unlucky... _things_... start happening!"

"Will you calm down?" grunted the pilot, wrestling Kit to an arms-length distance. "What can happen just because you lost some stupid penny?"

Kit waited a beat, his eyes wide with fright (or excitement, the pilot could not tell). "I start fires."

At that, the pilot stumbled backward. "Holy cripes, what kind of basket case _are _you?" He dug into his pocket and presented to Kit a new coin. "Here, take a lucky nickel and get lost!"

Kit refused it, and circled around the dock worriedly, hands over his ears. "No! I need... I need my penny."

By that time, Karnage, watching on, was utterly speechless with his jaw frozen open.

"Wait, it was right here," Kit said, jotting to the edge of the dock and peering over. "Look! There it is, in the water!"

"Kid, _please _just get off my dock," pleaded the panther. "You _can't _see a penny down there!"

"I see it!" beamed Kit, doing a hopping dance and pointing at the water. "Look, look!"

Frustrated, the pilot leaned over the edge to see what the big deal was. "I don't see squat!"

Kit swung behind him and gave the pilot a hefty nudge with his shoulders, sending him yelping into the drink. "Aw, well, I _could _be mistaken," Kit laughed. Above the splashes and curses that bought them a few minutes to take the plane, he spun toward Karnage and held his arms out in a 'Ta-da!' fashion. "No applause necessary!"

Of course, there was no applause offered. Instead the wolf sighed and rubbed his forehead as he passed Kit on the dock. "Headaches, boy. One after the other with you!"

"No, really," said Kit, dryly. "All your cheering is gonna go straight to my head."

"Now, we get this show in the air!" Karnage tore off all the wax paper from the shotgun, and aimed for the lock on the plane's side door.

"Wait!" said Kit, pushing the gun's muzzle away from the plane. "_Before _you put a big hole in our new plane..." Kit simply pulled on the handle and the door swung open.

Karnage turned his nose up at the boy's smug expression. "Fine, if you must do it the _boring _way," he scoffed.

When they stepped inside the plane, they found the second pilot in the cockpit; his back was turned toward them, and his ears were covered with large headphones. He was busily turning a radio knob on the dash, and held a microphone on his lap.

"We find Richter?" At length the panther turned around, expecting to see his partner... but no, the pirate making him stare up the barrel of a shotgun was definitely not his partner. He threw his hands up and held them there. "Whoa, who are-oh no, _you _again!"

Karnage lowered the shotgun a bit and cocked his head curiously. "_Me _again?"

"You don't r-remember?" asked the pilot, in fright. "Flight one twenty-seven over Flanders? You hijacked my plane in mid-air and blew it up!"

"Hmm..." Karnage thought about it for a moment. "No, that would be any typical Tuesday afternoon. But, since we are already acquainted..." He gave the panther another eyeful of shotgun barrel. "Start the plane."

"Wait, you gotta let me go," begged the pilot. "I got a wife and kids!"

"We can't take him with us," Kit whispered aside to Karnage.

Karnage clicked his tongue sympathetically. "Oh, but of course I will let you go! You have my word!" He stepped forward nose-to-nose with the panther, a hard glare and a smirk of diabolical giddiness. "_Fly_."

Out beyond the marina, on a stretch of open sea left quiet between the fishing boats, a lone seagull floated about in the blue crests. It paddled merrily along, oblivious to the big plane that was zipping over its head, which was quite unfortunate, because it also took no heed to the sudden shadow growing around its feathered body, a shadow that quickly grew to the size of Khan's pilot just before the big splash. The bird didn't know what hit it.

Up in the plane, Kit found a first aid kit and put two band-aids over his brow to cover the gash he received in the early morning. He had taken the co-pilot's seat, shaking his head at Karnage's cackling from the cargo hold. In a moment the captain had finished locking the side door and joined him in the cockpit, taking the controls; he had tossed the gun aside. "Hee! You should have seen that splash!"

Kit peered out the window, rubbernecking to see below, where the pilot bobbed in the water, batting away the pecking wrath of a very angry seagull. Most excellent, however, was the sight of Alpacito City and the jungle beyond it shrinking and fading in the distance. He heaved a big sigh of relief and sank into his seat.

He looked at Karnage, saw him very much the same way, slouched low with only a single finger wrapped around the bottom of the flight yoke, and a tired, absent grin that gloated over finally leaving the jungle behind. They shared a glance and burst into laughter.

"Wow," said Kit. "Did you ever seriously think we weren't gonna make it out of there?"

"Never," replied Karnage.

"Not once?"

"Not once," said Karnage. "What, you did?"

"Well, no! Not me!" Kit leaned toward the side window and hid his mouth behind his palm. "I might have thought _your _raggedy old tail wasn't gonna make it."

"What was that?"

"Oh... nothing. Nothing at all."

"Well _stop _nothing and find a map," said Karnage.

"There's one right here," replied Kit, reaching down the side of his seat, where he picked up a folded map. "Hold on, I'll tell you which way to turn in a second..."

"I _know _the way home," said Karnage. "I want you to mark where we found the gold, for the Iron Vulture."

"Aaahh... let's see if I can find it." Kit unfolded the map and scanned it with his finger. "Here it is. And look! It's _exactly _the same place where we found the giant, fire-breathing dragon! You don't suppose that _minor _little detail is going to be a problem, do you?"

"You saw, the big baboon Richter killed the white one," said Karnage. "They can be bested."

"That wasn't the same, though," said Kit. "How're we gonna fend off something that big?"

"Listen to me, by this time tomorrow, you will be up to your eyebrows in gold! _I_ have a plan." Karnage straightened up in his seat, pushed the plane's throttle to full power. "We will _deal _with the estupid dragon."


	12. A pirates' night in

Chapter 12

**A pirates' night in**

On a beautiful, sunny day on a tropical island, far away from a world of troubles, Don Karnage stretched blissfully on a hammock hung between two tall palm trees, surrounded and pampered by young women wearing grass skirts, some fanning and shading him with big palm leaves, some standing by at his side to hand-feed him peeled grapes.

The air was just right, not to cool, not too warm; he closed eyes and just drifted away, lost in a lullaby whispered in girlish giggles and crystal blue waves lapping on white sand. Everything was perfect...

Until someone poked him in the shoulder. And, not to his surprise, this annoying disturbance was owed to the boy.

"Grmm... go away!" yelled Karnage.

"Why don't we switch seats and I'll take over?" asked Kit. "I can do it, you know!"

"This is _my _spot," snapped Karnage. "Go poke a walrus!"

"Look, if I gotta _make _you wake up, you're not gonna like it," said Kit.

When Karnage opened his eyes, where was no warm paradise to greet him, but the hard steel of Khan's transport plane and all its mechanical gauges staring him in the face. He flinched and scanned the instruments, suddenly sitting upright, and checked the horizon. The sky was soft purple, a handful of stars beginning to glow in the east, and the last orange glint of the sunset slid under the ocean to the west.

"Easy," said Kit. "We didn't get off course, I checked already."

Karnage grumbled and slouched back in his seat. Ahead, a dark pillar of ash brewed over the water, a sign of an underwater volcano, and that was his cue to start descending. Pirate Island was not far.

"I didn't mean to let you nod off," yawned Kit, stretching his arms widely. "I fell asleep, too."

"Who was nodding?" scoffed Karnage. "I was only resting my eyes."

"You were drooling all over your shirt!" said Kit; with a cringe, he added, "I think your tongue was hanging out, too."

"Why don't you just erase the memory from that empty space between your ears."

"Yeah, I'm _trying_," Kit chuckled. "Yee-uck!"

Karnage brought the plane down low, skimming only a few dozen feet from the water, and threw on the landing light on the plane's nose and wings. They broke through a hazy bank of fog, where through drops of mist covering the windshield, jagged volcanic rocks began to appear jutting from the sea.

"What if the Iron Vulture's not there?" asked Kit. "What if the crew's all gone somewhere?"

"What if you had wheels?" replied Karnage. "You could be a bicycle! No _what-iffing _allowed!"

"Okay, _translated_, you mean it's crossed your mind and you have no idea what you're going to do if it happens."

Karnage did not answer. He scanned between the rocks outside and the compass on the dash, and made a final course adjustment that would send them straight to the island in a matter of minutes.

The lack of reply, however, did not keep Kit from wondering out loud: "What if they crashed the ship somewhere and-"

"I _mean _it, boy," interrupted Karnage. "Those blockheads... we will find out soon enough."

"But you promise, right? If we get the gold, I get a fair share?"

Karnage huffed an annoyed sigh and made a curt crossing gesture over his chest. "Have a little faith, you doubting dumbbell."

Kit picked up the plane's radio receiver and began turning the dial to the frequency to that of the pirate's hideout and airship.

"What are you doing that for?" asked Karnage.

"We're in range. Wouldn't hurt to see if anyone picks up, would it?" Kit keyed the receiver and spoke into it with a deep, slow voice, "Hel-llo? Anybody there?"

A moment passed, no response. Kit was about to try again when a voice broke through the static: 'Quit playin' on the radio, mutton-face!'

"It's Ratchet," said Kit. "He wouldn't be there if the ship wasn't. You wanna talk to him?"

"Not until I can _keelhaul _him while I am at it," said Karnage. "_All _of them."

"You're still a little sore over them ditching you in the jungle, aren't you?"

"Oh... a _little_," snarled the wolf.

"Well, if it's all the same, when we land, I'm gonna stay low and out of everyone's way. I'm not sure those guys are gonna like seeing me again."

"Do not get soft with them, boy," warned Karnage. "They give you trouble, give them more trouble back!"

"Actually, I was thinking on getting a head start on the trouble," Kit said. He held the radio to his mouth and disguised his voice again with low tones: "Hello? Is Colonel Spigot there? Colonel Spigot?"

Ratchet fired back on the other end, 'What the-I said, quit messin' around!'

Kit snickered and waited another moment, then continued over the air: "Yes, I need to speak to Colonel Spigot. Put him on, please."

'Shaddup!' yelled Ratchet.

"Would you please tell the Colonel to call me back?" Kit didn't give him a chance to respond next before shouting into the radio with a higher pitched, frantic voice: "Ratchet, Ratchet! Come in quick!"

'What? What's the matter?'

"Emergency! There's something _wrong _with the electric generator!"

"_What's _wrong? I just tuned it up last week and it was fine!"

"I know! You touched it, and it's _still _working! I'm scared!"

"Oooh," winced Karnage, leaning his ear closer to the radio. "Can you can hear him exploding yet?"

As the radio traffic fell oddly silent on Ratchet's end, probably because he was boiling over so much he could not speak, Kit signaled Karnage to wait, then imitated the Scourge of Sausage Creek himself: "Thith is Colonel Thh-pigot! Did I get any meth-ssages?"

Kit gestured with both hands like he was pushing down the bars on a TNT plunger box. On cue, Ratchet burst onto the radio: 'Aaauughh! When I find ya, wiseacre, I'm gonna pound your face with a wrench! You hear me!'

They did hear him, though it was not easy over all their guffaws.

**

* * *

**

Don Karnage taxied the plane into the cavern that made Pirate Island's rear entrance; without climbing the volcano to reach other gaping caverns at its heights, it was the only means inside the hideaway besides the main gates, which could not be opened from the outside, and even then, usually only to allow the Iron Vulture inside.

"Hurry up, boy," said Karnage, bursting from the plane first onto the dank, rocky ground. "I want my ship ready to leave before morning!"

With Kit at his heals, the wolf jotted through the tunnels, and he was more than ready to soar through the trap-laden obstacles set for intruders, until he came to a sudden halt at the lava pit, where on the far end, he saw missing the large, flat stone that was balanced over the thick stalagmite pillar, making it impossible to pass.

"What happened to my rock?" spat Karnage, his fists clenched with rage. "Who did that!"

Kit shrugged, feigning innocence. "I, uh... I wouldn't know."

"That makes me so _angry_!"

Kit tugged his coat and pulled him toward an adjacent tunnel. "Come on, let's just take the long way around. I'm sure whoever knocked it down fell in the pit with it."

"They had better," sulked Karnage, sweeping his feet away from the chasm. "It weighed five hundred pounds! These things are not easy to replace, you know."

Kit patted him on the back. "I know, I know. Life is a cruel beast."

**

* * *

**

Eventually they came around to the massive cove where the Iron Vulture was beached. The dread pirate flagship was dark and lonely, presently doing nothing but collecting dust. Pirates were scattered around the bay, laying lazily and despondently, and a stench of grog loomed about the air.

The first pirate they approached was Hal, who was laying flat on his back, half-asleep, an empty mug by his hand. Karnage kicked him in the side, which was perhaps the most subtle way to wake him up among all the other means that came to his mind (if only he had a starved wolverine handy).

"Aaauugh!" Hal screamed as if he had seen a ghost, and, amazingly enough for a guy with such a hefty load on his gut, shot to his feet nearly instantaneously. "B-boss! Gazzooks, we saw you fall, we thought...! We thought...!"

"That you were going to get _rid _of me?" asked Karnage suspiciously.

"N-no! A fall that high, we took ya for a goner, honest! How did ya...? How...?" Hal noticed Kit standing behind the captain; he frowned, scratched his head... "Is the brat _s'posed _to be followin' ya?"

"Never mind him," said Karnage. "If I was _goner _to you, who did you name in charge?"

"Well, Dumptruck for awhile-_I _didn't vote for him! But he gave it up... we couldn't decide on anything, so we came back here a few days ago. Everyone's just been sittin' on their duff!"

Groggily, Dumptruck rose from a stupor and peered over a stack of crates. "Der captain? Is _dat _him?" Excited talk began to fill the bay, from pirate to pirate, and more pirates hurriedly gathered around to see. Dumptruck clapped once and threw his hands in the air. "Der captain is back! Wee!"

"Cap'n!" Mad Dog came running in full sprint and dove at Karnage's feet, hugging his ankle. "It was horrible! _Horrible_! Don't ever leave me alone with these-!" He suddenly noticed Karnage was wearing suit pants. "Whoa, you been to a yard sale?"

"Get away from me!" shouted Karnage, kicking him off his leg. "You disgusting dunderbrains! You left me in that jungle! You are the most pathetic group of smelly, fish-faced, lily-livered imbecil-icals I have ever turned my nose up on!"

By then, there was no question among the entire crew... Don Karnage was indeed home again. His tirade went on, his flourished name-calling accented here and there by kick in the knee or a elbow in the gut. All the while, Kit rocked nervously on his feet, darting awkward glances among the crew, who many regarded him first with suspicion, then with some annoyance, and finally resigned acceptance; they were none pleased or impressed, and no one would dare to interrupt the captain's pep talk to gain the details, but they seemed to understand: the runt was back.

Karnage continued, "You do not even deserve to hear me say that I am about to make you _wealthy _beyond all your dim-witted dreams!"

Not that the pirates had never heard the captain say that in one way or another, but their interests were still piqued.

"We are going to plunder not a city, but a city of _gold_, treasure as far as your beedy eyes can see!" cried Karnage. "I was there, I saw it! But first, to get the gold, we will have a... _pest_... to exterminate. Be ready to fight, tooth and tail! I want the Iron Vulture stocked, now! Guns, rockets, bombs, _everything _we have that goes _ka-blooey!_ And... bacon, lots of bacon."

The pirates began to scramble to fulfill the captain's demands, but they all suddenly stopped and blinked dumbfounded at him.

"Bacon?" asked Hal.

"Yes, _bacon_," snarled Karnage. "We _have _bacon, no? Roast beef, chicken wings, anything we have, make sure it is on the ship!" He pointed to Ratchet, Gibber, and second mate Will. "You three, come with me! Boy, you prepare the charts! The rest of you, _get to work_!"

He went to make a point by swinging out his cutlass and raising it, but when he reached for where the hilt would have been; he had forgot he had lost it. "And _somebody _get me a sword!"

**

* * *

**

After a long bubble bath, Don Karnage stepped from his quarters in the Iron Vulture and walked the halls renewed and refreshed, donning new threads that matched his usual swashbuckling outfit, boots, buttons, and cutlass hilt polished and glistening.

He looked down from a catwalk into the hangar, where the attack planes were being fueled and stocked with ammunition belts. Big crates and palettes of various supplies also filled the area, and the pirates were finally finishing loading their inventory of big artillery shells onto dollies, to be wheeled to the broadside guns, and even larger shells being taken to the ship's gigantic dual front cannons.

There he also saw Kit having a look around. The boy was rather astonished and puzzled, particularly at a rack of fat, military-grade aerial bombs that were never part of the pirates' arsenal before, and, of all things random, a big cage packed with dynamite on the inside and tied with uncooked meats of all sorts on the outside.

Kit cocked his head back, as if exasperatedly asking 'what next?', and happened to see Karnage smirking at him. Kit gave him a forced toothy grin and a thumbs-up, but through his teeth he muttered, 'Yep, we're all gonna die!'

Next Karnage checked the bridge, where Will and Ratchet had just opened a floor panel and were making adjustments to some wiring therein.

"Whew, holy baloney," cringed Will, and he gave Ratchet a sniff. "You tryin' to give Dumptruck competition?"

"Hey, _you _rig a side of beef to a pile of dynamite and see how you smell," fumed Ratchet.

Karnage looked around the room. "Did the boy do the maps yet?"

"He was doin' something up here, who knows," said Ratchet, gesturing at a table off to the side. "Jeez, boss, about that. After what he pulled last time-heck, the last _two _times-you _sure _about havin' him around? Since when do we take traitors back?"

The captain checked the maps strewn over the table, and a complete course had been charted from Pirate Island to the gates of Rhamastan, a route which would take the airship far enough around the city of Alpacito and have a likely chance at avoiding detection by defending forces.

"Without the boy, you nearsighted ninny, we would not be about to plunder more gold than this ship will carry," said Karnage. He regarded the plotted course with approval, and in light of Ratchet's concern, a pleasant realization of how far Kit was committed to their marauding venture. "You could say, he had learn-ed better."

**

* * *

**

Well after midnight, the pirates' clamor had kicked up an awful lot of dust in the cove, though things were then settling down. Karnage left the Iron Vulture to grab a breath of fresh air before going to bed-that was what he would have the crew assume, anyway. He was actually looking for somebody... he had not seen the boy around the ship for quite some time.

Kit had a place on the island where he liked to go when he preferred some distance from the others, a cavern that opened like a great window toward the open sky and ocean. Many a time Karnage had found him there in the afternoons with pilfered snacks from the galley, reading flying magazines or comic books he scavenged from looted planes.

The moon was full, bright, and loomed high over the sea that night, and right where he had suspected, Karnage found Kit sitting on a long, flat stone near the mouth of the cavern. He was staring out to the ocean, his eyes full of excited thought, and his fingers rubbing together anxiously.

"Vision of plunder dancing through your head?" asked Karnage.

Kit jolted, a bit startled. "Wha'? No! Well... just a little, maybe."

"Oh?"

Like a bottle of soda shaken too much, Kit popped: "Okay, a brand new Thunderbuster! Have you _seen _the new models? Maybe _five _of them, all different colors! Oh, and with those new super-charged nitro-boosts in the engines! _Whoosh_, three hundred awesome miles per hour on take-off...!" He took a pause to catch his breath. "Wow. I could probably have any plane I want."

"Pssh. Keep the gold, _steal _the planes," said Karnage. "You have the practice, yes-no?"

"I'll keep it in mind," grinned Kit.

"I might as well give this to you now," said Karnage, and he handed the boy a red kerchief. "This is yours. Start _not _looking like a muddy-stick-in-the-fuddy-duddy for a change."

Kit accepted it, sheepishly but pleased. "Why'd you carry it around?"

"Who carried what," replied Karnage. "I had a _drawer _full of them. That one, though, is yours. After you got it in your confuzzled speck of a mind to destroy my magnificent lighting gun, I found it on the floor."

"But you still kept it, somewhere," said Kit. He looked the scarf over and noticed the little familiar details, tiny scruffs and stains right where he remembered them to be.

"I am not so _drastically _disappointed that it has come in use again," shrugged Karnage.

Kit was hesitant to reply, and for a moment he just fidgeted with the scarf in his hands. "You _want _me to stay?"

"Well, for such a filthy flea, you can _sometimes _be tolerated," said Karnage.

"Come on," said Kit, "I wasn't exactly missed around here, right?"

"Like measles and chicken socks," said Karnage. He put his foot on the stone Kit sat on and crossed his arms over his knee. "Still, this is where you belong. How can you think you would be happy going back... _there_?"

"No offense, but I've _been _happy there," said Kit.

Karnage sighed, shaking his head. "You say that now, only because of Baloo-ser."

"Don't start," said Kit. "And I've got more friends than that, too. I've got a life in Cape Suzette, and it's a nice one."

"Of _course _it is!" said Karnage, beaming sarcastically. "Hauling rubber chickens from Hungi Kungi to Bada Bing, why you are _living _the dream! _I_ thought you wanted to be rich."

"Well... who doesn't?" replied Kit.

"What happened to _Cloudkicker_? The boy who wanted to conquer the skies, a name to be famous and feared?"

"I... I could still be famous," said Kit quietly.

"Being locked up in school every day and doing homework every night... never for me. You?"

"_No one_ likes homework," cringed Kit.

"How long until you have to wait for a pathetic pilot's license?" asked Karnage, and he pointed at the red scarf, gesturing for Kit to put it on.

Kit frowned as he thought about the eons it seemed to have to wait until he was sixteen. "Four more years."

"Who needs a _piece of paper _to tell you what you are allowed to do?" With much content, Karnage waited for Kit to bring the scarf around his shoulders, then he took over for him, making sure it was straight and trying the knot in the back. "One day, you might have your five Busting-thunders..."

"Thunderbusters," corrected Kit.

"And maybe _those _too," said Karnage. "But it is not an airplane you want, it is the _freedom_. To do what you want, go where you want, when you want. Who can have the world when they are walled in behind the Cape Suzette cliffs with all those pencil-pushing pinheads? We make our _own _destiny, our own way. And just think of what is best of all!"

Kit caressed the tip of his scarf, reminiscing that old familiar sight under his chin. "What?"

Karnage pointed at himself with his thumbs. "_I _am right here."

To the captain's chagrin, however, Kit's face fell dark; he slumped into a low droop, his shoulders stiff. Karnage recoiled a step, dismayed and confused... that was far from the reaction he expected.

"You... _trust _me, yes?" asked Karnage.

"Sure," Kit replied, half-heartedly.

Karnage frowned, and slowly turned away, for once unsure of himself. He glanced around, as if to make sure no one was watching, and sat down next to Kit on the stone. "_Do _you?"

"I... don't know," mumbled Kit, after a long pause.

Taking a deep breath, Karnage opened his mouth and gestured his hands around like he was about to get a lot off his chest, but he hesitated, and the words would not come. A cross expression washed over his face, but then he grinned.

"You know, it is a well known fact," he said, and as he spoke, he counted on his fingers as if making a list, "I am fabulous, _ferocious_, cunning, stunning, stupendous, spec-_tac_-ular..."

Kit rolled his eyes. "Been reading the dictionary?"

Karnage nudged him to get him to look at him. "You make me even better."

Kit did not reply, but cracked a bit of a smile.

"When I found you," said Karnage, "I saw a pint-sized hairball who was _me _when I was that small. You wanted to be just like me, and I wanted to be the hero-type to you. I did not always show it, but... I am a pirate, not a parent. What could I do."

"It's okay," said Kit. "It's not like I wanted to be adopted."

"Still, I know now why you ran away."

"Nothing we can really do about it... huh?"

"No," said Karnage, shaking his head solemnly, "Nothing can change what happened."

They slouched resignedly on the stone, watching the moon as if waiting for it to speak a word of wisdom. Memories glittered in the stars, and thoughts about what could have been. Don Karnage hunched over with one hand on his stomach like he was quelling an ulcer, and with the other he scratched his nose to hide his lips. "Sorry."

Kit's ears perked up, and he brightened considerably. He grabbed Karnage by the arm as if the wolf was about ready to keel over on his head. "You're not gonna pass out, are ya?"

"Have I told you to _shut up _lately?" sneered Karnage.

"Hey, no hard feelings, about anything," said Kit. "I guess I can say, thanks for saving me."

"Pfft, more times than I can count," the wolf scoffed.

"I don't mean _lately_," said Kit, "I mean... before, when I didn't have anywhere to go. I probably would've ended up roadkill somewhere if it wasn't for you."

Karnage shrugged. "Most definitely true," he said, and he made a show of admiring the shine on his claws. "I tell you, sometimes I am so generous it shames me."

"Yeah, and you oughtta take up gardening, too," grinned Kit. "I've never seen _anyone _shovel a load of manure like you."

"Pushing your luck," said Karnage, though a rare twinkle was in his eye. He stood up in front of Kit, holding an arm behind his back in a gentlemanly fashion, and held the other out of Kit to shake. "Then bygones are going goodbye, yes?"

Kit stood up on the stone and slapped his palm firmly into Karnage's. "What are the odds you might start calling me Kit?"

"_Salud_," replied Karnage, without a moment's thought. "And one hour until the Iron Vulture is off! Try to be _on _it, hm?"

"I thought we were waiting 'til morning," said Kit.

Karnage patted him hard on the shoulder and headed back inside the cavern. "By the time we get there, it will _be _morning. Who wants to wait?"

Kit jumped off the stone and followed him. "What does 'saloo' mean?" he asked.

"Salud," replied the wolf. "Spanish for 'go burry your sneezing face in the sand'."

"But I didn't..." Kit stopped and thought about it, then resumed with a stomp in his step and a fist shaking in the air. "My name is _not _a sneeze!"

**

* * *

**

As preparations on board the Iron Vulture finally wound to a finish, the pirates began to file to their berths to catch half a night's sleep before the airship arrived over the coast of Alpacatan. Some would take turns at the helm bringing the ship to its destination overnight.

On a catwalk near the bridge, Kit knelt at the edge and looked down into the hangar, pondering the day ahead. The planes were poised for attack, cranes, winches, and lifts were lined by the bomb bay doors, and of course, there was the ample arsenal of explosives. Karnage had not brought quite as much fighting power along when he breached the cliffs of Cape Suzette, though Kit mused that, given the fashion of which Karnage had to hastily retreat from the Cape, the captain had learned to be better prepared.

Will was just leaving the bridge and saw him there. He lit up a cigar and joined him. "Well, well. The brat's back."

Kit backed away from him, suddenly alarmed.

"Relax," said Will, with a chuckle that made him choke on his own smoke. He coughed and wiped his eyes. "I ain't gonna deck ya. The boss you're all right now... er, again... _whatever _it is."

"Whatever he said, I don't know how much that's gonna matter," said Kit. "Like, last time I was on this boat, I tied Dumptruck to a propeller. I don't think those memories are gonna go over well."

"Ha! It does for the rest of us," laughed Will. "A big ox like him, and what are you, eight or nine years old?"

"I'm _twelve_," said Kit, narrowing his eyes at him.

"Yeah, sure." The second mate took a long drag from his cigar and blew the smoke in a long billow over his head. "Let me ask ya, brat, straight-out. You with us, or not?"

"Well... I'm here, aren't I?"

"Yeah, so jack else matters. They'll shine you on like always , but heck, you've busted Karnage's chops worse than anyone else's. If he ain't holdin' a grudge, don't think you gotta worry."

Will spied Dumptruck lumbering across the far end of the catwalk. "Speak of the ugly," he said, then shouted, "Hey, fat-head! Look who's here!"

"Hot whoopa-dee-doo," said Dumptruck, tired and deadpan. "Let me just do der little dance to celebrate." He whirled his fingers in the air as he turned the corner.

"Ya see?" said Will, flicking the tip of his cigar. "His tail almost wagged."

"Ri-ight," drawled Kit. He looked down into the hangar again, his chin just barely poking over the top of the railing. "Where'd you get those bombs?"

"Ain't they beauts?" said Will. "Surprise loot from a ship convoy we hit near Hounsland. Dumb mutts used civvy ships to try to sneak 'em out their country, no security. Dragon-schmagon, they're gonna hit the spot if that son of a gun rears its head outta the ground."

Kit blinked at the mention of the D-word, thinking he was unexpectedly knowledgeable for such speculation. "Who said _that _would happen?"

Will shrugged. "Captain says it was trying to break loose. You saw it, didn't you?"

Suddenly Kit felt sick in his stomach, remembering the bloodthirsty roar quaking the jungle, and the fury building from the depths of the old volcano there. "I saw it, all right," he said. He glanced over their explosives in a different regard... somehow they seemed like firecrackers now.

**

* * *

**

Kit was walking through a corridor to his old berth when the Iron Vulture prepared for takeoff. It was quiet and cold. Low sounding booms echoed in the halls as the airship's rotors were warmed one by one. Alarms sirens could faintly be heard from island, announcing that the great front gates were being opened. The floor began to roll gently as a tugboat started to pull the airship toward the open sea and a new promise of fortune... and certainly danger.

What would happen tomorrow... Kit wondered if anyone else had such fluttering in their stomach as he did. They others were dreaming of what would be waiting, but he had seen it.

It was déjà vu as he walked the hall, and it would not go away. He found himself looking around and exploring the corridor as if only for the first time, noticing the same spots of grime on the walls, the cracks between the metal plates on the floor, the way certain lights on the ceiling flickered, the mutters and cackles from the crew... it was eerie, like ghosts hiding behind every corner and shadow, whispering memories of the smallest detail of his very first night on board the Iron Vulture. Back then, he had no idea what to expect the next morning, either.

He came to a room and flipped the light switch; it was his old berth with his old bed. The lone lightbulb fixed on the ceiling, the green blanket loosely tucked under the mattress, the beat-up pillow, the rag tied to a slow leaking pipe by the top corner, even the old comic book and flight manual under the bed, it was exactly the same as when he left it, save for the clutter of some additional boxes stacked in the corner.

He stood at the doorway for a moment and looked at the bed; he remembered how he felt when he first laid eyes on it, when he had gone years sleeping in alleys, under bridges, in hangars, wherever he could find cover from the night, and then to finally have had a real bed. After a rough week in the jungle wilderness, he felt much the same.

_'Well... here I am,'_ he thought. Ready for a bit of sleep as he had ever been, he padded to the bed, spun around on his heel and jumped backward onto the mattress, and a cloud of dust sprang forth and consumed him. He coughed and frowned. Apparently, it would have just _killed _someone to have done a little housekeeping all year.

Grudgingly, he conceded to the dust and rolled over with his cheek on the pillow, stretched his toes, and buried the uncertainty of the morning ahead with a blind faith that Don Karnage was going to make everything work out fine. A chill ran down his back... that déjà vu, it was getting downright creepy...

* * *

It was nearly two years prior, when Kit was just shy of his eleventh birthday, where by either sheer coincidence or unfolding destiny, he suddenly found himself on the Iron Vulture, and in the good graces of its captain.

Don Karnage was hardly known to take kindly to strangers on his ship, let alone children, but it was apparent to the crew that he had made an exception. He took a quick liking to the boy.

Regardless of being short and filthy, to Karnage the boy seemed quick, bright, and competent… a breath of fresh air from the 'ignoranimooses' he had to deal with on a daily basis. Karnage did not have to question to know he was homeless, but it was an aspect that appealed to him even more. By the way he handled Ratchet, he could see that this was a kid who could take care of himself… not one of those needy whelps who needed their mothers around to wipe their nose for them.

After discovering the boy stowed away on a plane, Karnage had offered Kit a meal, quite generously Kit thought. But all the airplanes, the secrets and wonder of real pirates got the better of Kit's curiosity, and they did not get close to the galley before Kit started asking questions: what was in that room and the next, what did they use _that _for, and so on.

At first, Kit followed somewhat timidly behind the captain and listened to him proudly explain various facts and tales about whatever part of the airship they wandered in. But before long, as Karnage spoke more to him, answering his questions and rousing his intrigue, Kit's confidence and fondness grew towards him. Soon it seemed debatable who was leading whom anymore… Kit would dash ahead of the captain, asking "What about in here?" and "What's this?"

For his part, Karnage was hospitable to a piratical fault. He did not at all mind taking the time to show the boy around, and taking the opportunity to brag heartily and tell fascinating stories about himself and his adventures, for possibly nothing could have pleased him more than that Kit was listening with utmost attention at his every word.

Karnage saw in Kit's eyes, in every wondrous glance, daydreams of what could be.

They traversed many decks, corridors, and rooms, and once passing by the brig, where that pilot who unknowingly gave him a ride was being introduced to a grate and soapy tub to scrub the pirates' dirty laundry.

Down another hall Kit was about to take the liberty of opening one particular door himself, but Karnage promptly grabbed his shirt and yanked him back. "Ah-ah-ah, _not_ in there," he said.

"Oh…" Kit faltered, suddenly scared he had gone too far. "I-I didn't mean anything, really."

Karnage looked at his hand and frowned; it was smudged with dirty residue from Kit's shirt. "Boy, do you realize what a flea-bag of filth you are?"

Kit stepped away from him, ashamed. "Sorry."

The captain pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiped his hand clean. "_If_ were to show you what was behind this door, you are to touch _nothing_, understand?"

That brought a smile to Kit's face. "Understood. What is it? Some sort of secret pirate weapon? A new secret plane?"

Karnage was amused by his imagination, and opened the door. "No… this!"

Kit squeezed through the doorway before it was even open all the way, ready to see something exciting. But after a few steps he stopped, arching his eyebrow. "Huh? Looks like a bedroom."

"Yes… _mine_," Karnage boasted, following him in.

Kit did not see anything exciting like he thought he might, but he was still impressed. The room was immaculate, with the steel walls glistening in the warm sunshine that beamed through the window. There was a dresser, full-length mirror, several trunks, a desk, and fancy rug on the floor, but the most eye-catching piece had to the bed; it was perfectly made, covered with a fluffy purple bedspread, and decorated with silk red curtains and a large cursive 'K' emblem hanging overhead. Don Karnage was the wealthiest person he had ever met.

"Wow… you actually _live_ here? On the ship?" asked Kit.

"Most of the time," Karnage said. He stepped to his mirror and drew his cutlass, posing himself in various fencing positions, as he usually did when entering his quarters.

"Awesome," Kit breathed.

"How r_rright_ you are!" Karnage replied, gazing at himself admirably. He did not realizing Kit was not speaking of his fencing flair.

Kit wondered if the "tour" was over, and started worrying. What was going to happen now? He watched for awhile as Karnage dashingly swiped his sword at imaginary opponents, then decided to speak up. "Uh… Mister, uh… Karnage?"

Karnage's arm came to a sudden halt in mid-swing. "_Mister_?" He turned towards Kit, apparently offended. "Am I looking like a _mister_ to you, boy?" he asked, pointing his cutlass at him. "I am a _pirate_!"

Kit backpedaled, holding his hands up. "Whoa, easy! It wasn't an insult!"

The captain lowered his sword. "What is it?"

"Well, I think your ship's amazing and everything… but… how'm I gonna… I mean, where am I… you're not gonna throw me in the _jail_, are you?"

Karnage blinked, then laughed out loud. Kit didn't know if that was a good sign or a bad sign. "Perhaps you tell me, boy. What should I do with you? Hm?"

"Uh… give me a lift to the nearest city?" Kit asked.

"A _lift_? Do you think I am running a taxi-derby here?"

Kit lowered his eyes. "No sir..."

Karnage smirked. The boy was the boy was still cautious of the ferocious image he had earned, and he loved it. Karnage gestured for him to follow, and Kit trotted along behind him, curiously, out the room and down to another deck.

"Where we going?" asked Kit. Karnage was moving like he was in a hurry.

"You are still hungry, yes?"

"I could eat a gorilla bird," replied Kit, rather hopefully.

Karnage led him to the airship's large kitchen, which was cluttered with myriad of dirty pots, plates, and utensils stacked everywhere. Just before entering, the captain glanced around slyly, and leaned close to his ear, with his hand next to his mouth like he was telling a secret. "Listen, tomorrow we will arrive at our most _secretive _pirate hideout," he said. "Earn your keep here, and perhaps I give you a little to eat, and let you stick around to see it."

Kit perked up. "You mean I can _stay _here?" But then he paused, suddenly afraid. "Wha'... what do I have to do?"

"Are you kidding? What do you see _wrong _with this room?"

"Uh... well... the dishes are dirty."

"Son of a gun, the boy is not blind!"

Kit frowned, looking a bit intimidated at the work load. "It's... it's a lot of dishes."

Karnage looked up thoughtfully. "Or, I could toss you off my ship and see how spectacular a splash a puny-type person like yourself makes in the middle of the ocean."

Very promptly, Kit rubbed his hands together. "Why don't I just get to work."

Karnage nodded approvingly, faintly showing a satisfied grin. "Not as estupid as yo look, eh?"

Kit took a few steps into the kitchen, but stopped and looked back up at the wolf. "What about... _after _tomorrow?"

"Stop worrying, will you," said Karnage. "No, uno momento! There _is _one thing I want you to worry about now."

"What's that?"

Karnage pointed to the nearest sink. "Get over there and clean yourself, you stinky stooge. You are perfumating my ship!"

Much later, the Iron Vulture had anchored off the shore of a small island for the night. The usual commotion and clamor that echoed through the airship had winded down as the pirates eventually all dispersed into their respective beds.

Kit walked down the chilly iron hall that lead to the berths, counting the doorways as he passed them. Some of the pirates shared the same room, a particularly large dormitory that furnished dozens of single-size beds, personal chests, and sinks. He stopped to peer inside as he came across it, taking a moment to watch the others as they hunkered down for sleep, and listen in on their gabbing about plunder, weapons, and women. They were an odd group, and dangerous, no doubt. Most of them had scars to give testament to their ugly demeanor.

For one ten-year-old boy, it was like swimming in a pool of big, deadly sharks and not getting bit. There was just something neat about that.

"Hey, move it or lose it, kid," said Hal from behind.

A bit startled, Kit quickly got out of the doorway and let him pass. "Uh, s-sorry."

"Yeah yeah yeah," the fat feline yawned, scratching himself in uncouth places as he headed for bed.

Kit yawned himself. He _was _getting quite tired. He walked down the hall further, toward the room he was told he could sleep in.

The day had proved unforgettable, to say the least. While he spent the afternoon sticking close to Karnage, following and observing him commanding the crew, the captain let him alone to explore more of the airship while he went about his own usual pirate business. Kit had only heard tales of the Iron Vulture before, how it was so big it could swallow the largest cargo planes, but he never fathomed just how big it actually was.

Most of the other pirates Kit came across paid him no special attention, more than less indifferent to his presence. They weren't the warmest bunch-nor the cleanest nor brightest-yet there was a sense of belonging among them, one that they perhaps never had before they were pirates. He knew what _that _was like. Going room to room, he observed them in their normal activities... ship maintenance, playing poker, telling dirty jokes... he heard a rumor somewhere along the way about cockroach races, but he'd have to see it to believe it. During the afternoon, he encountered a small group shooting dice-which, from street experience, he knew something about-and joined in. He ended up losing the ten dollars he had pickpocketed earlier at the airfield, but won a little camaraderie, if nothing else. He would see about a way to hustle his money back some other time.

When dinner time came around, he essentially 'followed the herd' to the ship's galley. It was a gigantic room, lined wall-to-wall with enough benches to seat hundreds of crewmen. The food was hot and decent, and though Kit was the last in line to get himself a plate, the captain made good on his promise, and before he left the room he was so stuffed he could barely walk.

His tattered blue sweatshirt was long burned away in the garbage furnace, as ordered by the captain earlier. Karnage had given him a clean white undershirt and a green woolen sweater from the pirates' spare wardrobe. The handful of short pirates that might have actually fit in the sweater would never have taken it; it looked far too civilian. Even Karnage agreed that for a fitting pirate look, the outfit left a little something to be desired.

Kit, however, was not so picky. The sweater seemed as good as new, except for a hole torn on the right elbow, but he could always patch that up later. The wool was warm and soft-he loved it. Why the infamous scourge of the skies, Don Karnage, had treated him to such hospitality, he did not know. He didn't ask, either. Some things you just didn't question, lest they be jinxed.

Kit flipped the light switch on in the room he was told was his. It was not much to look at; bare walls plated with sheets of metal, a few pipes running along the walls, and a bunk bed with two old brown blankets and a small pillow on the bottom mattress. The top bunk was stripped. It wasn't exactly a fancy suite at the Ritz Crackerton, but it was a bed, blanket, and pillow nonetheless; they were luxuries compared to many of the places he had been sleeping before.

The room had one lone circular window that stared out the airship's broadside into the black night, leaving nothing to view but a blurry shape of the yellow moon glowing in the haze of the far horizon. Kit had to stand on the bed to look out of it, and there the realization struck him that he literally had no idea where in the world he was. It left him with an odd feeling; so very uncertain of what was in store next, but yet not afraid.

The whole world had flipped over and stood on its head; that was practically all the sense he could make out of it. He woke up that morning from spending the night behind the trash bins of an airfield, with not a roof over his head or knowing where his next meal was coming from. Suddenly finding himself with a place to lay his head and a full stomach-aboard a flying aircraft carrier, no less-was almost too hard to believe...

He crawled in bed and curled up in the covers, but for a while his eyes were wide and he stared aimlessly, dreamily into space, for he knew now exactly whom he wanted to be like when he was older.

He slept well that night.


	13. Duel of the old gods

**Chapter 13**

**Duel of the old gods**

Rebecca Cunningham arrived at Higher for Hire the next morning frowning at the large stack of delivery crates left untouched on the docks. The day was the seventh since anyone had seen Kit, and not one delivery had been made since.

She was met at the door by a courier, who approached her with a clipboard and an envelope. "Higher for Hire?" he asked.

"That's us," replied Rebecca.

He handed her the envelope and gestured for her to sign on the clipboard. "Telegram for you, ma'am."

She thanked him and put the envelope in her coat pocket as she fished for her keys to unlock the door.

Inside the office, she found Baloo slouched back and snoring in his favorite chair. She let him be and went to put on a pot of coffee in the kitchen, leaving her coat on the counter. Afterward, she found the telephone directory and began to look up companies that rented cargo planes, thinking she would have Wildcat start on the deliveries. She had not the heart to force Baloo away from searching for Kit.

Her mind wandered as she sifted through the telephone numbers, and soon was doing nothing at her desk but staring at the front door. She half expect Kit to walk inside any minute, to see a weary grin telling a danger-riddled tale of where he had been and how he cunningly found his way home at last. That was a wish she had been holding fast to for a week.

The truth was, however, that at seven days, hope was wearing thin, though no one dared yet to speak of the worst. Molly moped instead of played. The carefree smile usually plastered on Wildcat's countenance was absent. Her heart ached for Baloo. If it had been her daughter missing, she would have been a nervous wreck.

She made her telephone calls quietly to afford Baloo a little more rest. Then she remembered the telegram, and went to the kitchen to retrieve it.

_'Alpacito City,' _she thought, looking at the return address first. _'Who do I know there?'_

She sipped from her coffee mug and began reading the note. Her eyes suddenly widened and her coffee spilled over.

"Baloo!" she hollered, bursting back into the office. "Baloo! They found Kit!"

Baloo snorted and jolted awake. "_What_?"

"Kit's okay! They found him!"

Baloo was off his chair in a flash. "Who? _Where_?"

"Tyler Borden, of all people!" said Rebecca. "They found him in..." Rebecca paused, quite suddenly, befallen by a confused frown as she finished reading the _entire _message, which contained phrases such as: _'Lied. Betrayed. Gone piraterottentothecore.'_

By the last words, letters squished together, it was evident the sending party wished to pile in more descriptive phrases about the boy than the message would fit.

She handed Baloo the telegram, which he read quickly. "I don't know what he means by this."

Baloo tucked the telegram into his shirt pocket. "Only one way to find out, right?"

He pushed his hat snugly over his head and wasted no time getting out the door. Rebecca went after him. "Wait! I'm coming with you!"

**

* * *

**

Just as dawn peered over the Atronador Heights, the Iron Vulture had crossed over the shoreline of Alpacatan, well south of the big city, flying low behind the mountain ridges in an attempt to avoid being spotted by the scattered towns and villages.

On the bridge, Don Karnage kept a eye on Mount Seren with a telescope, though it was difficult to keep a careful watch as they were at a great distance. A veil of smoke was still rising forth, and he sent Mad Dog to do a fly over to see if there was any sign of the dragon. Kit was beside him, watching the smoke with his nose to the glass.

Static cracked over the radio, and Mad Dog's voice was coming through in pieces.

"Hey," said Jock, "He's callin' us!" He ran to the table and turned up the radio.

"Ask him what he sees," said Karnage.

"Capt'n wants ta know what ya see," relayed Jock on the microphone.

Mad Dog made a reply, though only broken words came though; the rest was drowned in static: "All - in - ground!"

"At least it sounded like he was talking instead of screaming," said Kit. "That might be a good sign, huh?"

Karnage shook his head, and resumed looking through his telescope. "If that wretched reptile was there, I would at least _know _where it was at, and I could tear it into a pair of _very big shoes_!"

When Mad Dog returned, Kit and Karnage went to the hangar to hear what he had to say. While waiting for him to land, though, Kit's attention was snagged by a weapon rack full of muskets and grappling hook guns...

The whole ship was abuzz with excited chatter about the heist ahead, not only about the gold, but more so about what they might encounter. Word of a deadly dragon guarding the all the treasure spread overnight, and though they could only picture what that meant in their mines, they greeted the problem with rowdy shouts and cracked knuckles galore... they were _hoping _for a fight.

"Well?" Karnage asked Mad Dog, as he stepped out of his plane.

"It's a big hole in the ground," shrugged Mad Dog.

Karnage glared at him angrily, prompting him to be a bit more articulate if he wanted all of his body parts left as they were.

"No, r-really," stammered Mad Dog, backing away from the captain. "That's all it was! There was nothin' in there, just some smoke and hot lava!"

"Lava?" Karnage asked.

"Yeah, way deep down there, but you can see it, it's burnin' red," said Mad Dog.

"Hmm... good," said Karnage, and he scratched his cheek and thought. "And then either it has escaped already, or it will be waiting for us."

"We ain't scared of no lizard!" a pirate shouted. The rest of the crew replied with a loud and hearty "Yaarr!"

"We're gonna string it up by its tail!" another pirate shouted.

"Yaarr!"

_*BANG!*_

That last round of cheers was abruptly stopped by a loud gunshot, and the pirates in the hangar yelped and ducked. And poor Dumptruck... he never knew what hit him before his hat was blasted from his head. That purple feather attached to his hatband was blown in half, and he watch haplessly as it fluttered to the floor.

They turned and saw Kit knocked on his rear, with a smoldering musket in his hands. He replied to their angry looks with a nervous grin. "Uh... sorry. It, uh, fell off the wall! I just picked it up to put it back!" He hung it back on the rack and walked away from it quickly, clearing his throat. "Ahem. Carry on."

Karnage ran his hand down his face and sighed heavily. "My protégé," he muttered.

Dumptruck picked up his hat, pouting. "Der, I _hate _when he does that."

A buzzer rang throughout the ship, a message from the bridge that their destination was fast at hand. The pirate crew scrambled to their positions.

"Try not to mess this up, you bungling bucket-heads!" yelled Karnage, which was as much of a rousing pep talk as the crew was going to get. He looked at Kit and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "You stick with me, boy. Go!"

From the top of the canyon that hid Rhamastan's gates, Jesse Richter had set up a small camp for himself, awaiting reinforcements from Shere Khan. When he first heard the engine noises from a distance, he thought it was the zeppelin fleet arriving early... the echoes made it difficult to tell from which direction the dirigibles were approaching.

He pulled out a pair of binoculars and scanned the horizon. The engines were getting louder, closer... and closer... he never thought zeppelins would have made such a racket. He scanned back and forth, not seeing anything. "I hear you guys," he said, "but where in the blue h-aaugh!" He yelped as the shadow of the Iron Vulture suddenly cast over him.

He took cover in the foliage, cursing repeatedly. His movements were limped and pained, for the stab wound in his thigh ached fiercely. The pirate airship slowed to a hover before the canyon, and several long rope ladders were dropped from the beak-shaped prow, bomb bay doors, and hatches on the broadside. Dozens of blade and musket wielding pirates began to descend to the ground and race into the long, jagged crevice. Cranes lowered some of the explosives.

Richter slid to the edge of the cliff on his stomach, and watched them with his binoculars. He found Karnage, he was leading the pack, swinging his cutlass and shouting orders. Gibber and Karnage Junior, as Richter thought of the kid, were right beside him.

Then he surveyed the Iron Vulture and calculated a rough plan. With the ladders down, he could board the ship and cause a lot of trouble, even crash it. Khan's zeppelins and their fabric hulls would stand no chance against the Iron Vulture's cannons. They would never even get close to it.

He spied the captain again, and with the pain in his leg he found himself so fuming that he could not think straight. With a grunted exhale he forced himself to focus on this impending mess and how he was going to deal with it. On the bright side, he figured, he was not going to have to go far to keep his promise to Karnage. He decided not to take any more chances letting him go; Karnage got too lucky too often. He grabbed his repel gear from the camp and set it up.

In a frenzy of greed, the pirates climbed over the rubble left at the gate of the ancient stronghold and stormed through the first hall, each drunk with the imagery of what great treasures they would claim in the mountain. They stopped to leer at the glowing stones fixed in the walls like they were large diamonds for the taking, though their captain commanded them to move on and worry about those later.

Karnage led the way further down the hall, and started coughing. The air was suddenly hot and smokey, and stung his eyes. He and Kit were the first to clear the hall, the rest of the crew shortly behind them, but when they came to the first great cavern that housed the garden bright as day-as they had remembered it, anyway- they all came to a dismal halt.

Everything was blackened and veiled in a dark haze. The giant trees, some still smoldering a feint red glow, were nought but charred skeletons, the once vibrantly glowing plants were shredded and roasted into ash. In the middle of it all was the golden statue, toppled to the ground, her features melted into vague shapes.

The cavern walls were shattered, the glowing stones imbedded in them gone. The path that led out of the area was laden with rubble the size of boulders, the cliffs had been sundered apart to make a much broader passage.

Kit looked around in circles, breathing into the arm of his sweater. His toes brushed against an old iron battle helm. He bent to pick it up and dropped it; it was still hot to the touch.

Last in line came the pirates' special trap, the cage rigged with raw meat and enough dynamite to blow them all to high heaven, presently being shouldered by Dumptruck and Hal, who could not so much contemplate their scorched surroundings rather than grumble under the strain of the contraption's weight.

Kit stepped behind Karnage, waiting for him to say something, as the rest were; for his part, Kit was not without a bit of hope that Karnage would order a retreat. Among his priorities, leaving with empty pockets was low on the list, but not quite as low as being barbequed. At length he tugged on the captain's coat sleeve.

Karnage jerked his arm away, not even looking at him, and while the wolf tried to be covert about it, Kit could see the lump he swallowed.

"Did... it do all this," asked Ratchet, speaking aloud for many like-minded thoughts at the moment.

Karnage raised his sword and motioned toward Dumptruck and Hal. "Bring its tasty snack to the front," he ordered. "At the first sight of the beast, drop it, and then I would _only suggest _you run like the chickens! On your toenails, all of you, and step like you are _not _a bunch of elephants dancing in a china shop!"

One by one, muskets were raised in shaky but ready fashion, and there was no longer laughter among the crew at the thought of an impending fight, but sullen murmurs and spooked hisses where one wondered if the devil himself was about to leap from the shadows and claim their soul.

Hacksaw, with his mad grin, was an exception. He just didn't give a hoot about what happened as long as he could blow something up. "Let's find it an' make it go _boom _already!" he cried, jotting to the front of the group, his hands full of dynamite sticks and matches.

"It is only an animal," growled the captain, but though the crew did not assume as much, he was mostly convincing himself. He marched forward, and the rest followed in short order, trampling the scattered remains of the old Felocians into the ashes. "One animal, and more gold than we can carry out of here! Move it!"

Mutters of agreement rose, with determined growls that no creature was going to stop them.

Loose rocks from above poured on their heads. It took some time for them to negotiate the path ahead over the rubble, though between the broken cliffs they saw waiting for them at the end a golden glow, heavenly by comparison, and they assumed a greater haste away from the ashes.

They arrived en masse at the main court, the ziggurat temple set before them and the great golden walls all around. This they took in with a large degree of awe, now seeing what grand potential was about to sate their greedy fantasies, and that was just for the construction material.

Hunched in the shadows, Richter was stalking them from behind; he had no luck to stealthily pick any of them off, they were all too close together and had to many guns to risk being seen.

To the left of the temple was the carcass of the slain white dragon, lying bloodied in the garden of giant-leafed plants.

"That don't look so bad," a pirate remarked. Hacksaw kicked his foot across the ground and sulked, seeing that someone had already blown its head off.

The pirates began to scatter somewhat, not as organized groups but as individuals staring absently at the walls, wondering what could be behind all those doors. Karnage did the same, but he was not looking for signs of treasure. His left ear perked and zeroed in toward the great cavern mouth where they had last seen the giant black beast emerge; its depth was shielded in smoke.

Richter slipped into one of the doorways along the outer wall, and found a ladder where he accessed a balcony not far from directly above Karnages head. He held his machete in his fingers as if balancing it, and gauged his odds at being able to sink it into the wolf's skull from there.

"You hear it?" Kit asked the captain.

"I thought so..." said Karnage. He leaned over closer, eyeing the cavern suspiciously. "You?"

"I can't tell," shrugged Kit, breathing slowly to listen. "Maybe it's nothing."

"It _must _be nothing, then," concluded Karnage, and he straightened up as if the matter was closed.

Kit nodded, pleased that Karnage was taking his opinion to heart, but then again, that seemed a little too easy. He assumed he would regret asking, but: "Wait, why?"

"Please, boy, you could pick up radio signals with those ears!"

Kit rolled his eyes. That was more like it, he thought. "It's a _good thing _you didn't give me a gun," he grumbled.

Don Karnage raised his sword and pointed it to the temple, where the doors inside were still wide open. "Onward, men! We start our pillaging performance in there!" To Dumptruck and Hal, he ordered them to set their 'dragon trap' halfway between the cavern and the passage from where they just came; this was a task that took a bit of time as it was no short walk across the vast court.

His loud commands echoed and bounced a couple times over their heads. The pirates cut loose with another _'Yarr!' _and fell in together in a large group and trod down the path to the temple.

Meanwhile, Richter had his knife wound back over his head. He cocked his head like he was aiming down the barrel of a hunting rifle, with Karnage's crown in the crosshair. Then he thought he would aim just a little lower... the back would be a nice target, easier to hit and it make him suffer a little longer. Watching the wolf so contentedly lead his thugs, too confident for proper caution, made this deadly surprise that much more rewarding.

And so, before he could let Karnage get much further, Richter lunged forward from the balcony and let fly his machete with as much might as he could throw...

From the cave, a powerful roar blasted from the depths, and caught the pirates as though they were standing in the tracks of a speeding train. In a sudden jolt, Karnage stumbled over Kit, who in turn got knocked head over heels on the ground.

Kit blinked dazedly, with Karnage cursing on top of him; the pirates were hollering frantically, and he could have swore he saw a big knife bounce off the ground in front of them.

"Boy," huffed Karnage, "why don't you watch where I am-!" He suddenly paused, and his nose wrinkled. He tipped a glance at his right shoulder... there was a cut and it was bleeding. "Yee-owch!"

"Dammit!" shouted Richter, though at the top of his lungs it did not really matter; the pirates were going berserk looking for cover.

Karnage clasped his shoulder as he stood up, searching the area above him as to what hurt him. "Something _bit _me!"

"Something's _gonna _bite you!" cried Kit, and he yanked on Karnage's hand to get him moving. The beast's breath brushed against their faces like a gust of arid wind. "It's coming this way!"

"Set the trap!" ordered Karnage, and he and Kit scrambled to get inside the nearest doorway along the golden outer wall. "Now, now, now!"

Dumptruck and Hal stumbled and dropped the trap, halfway to where they intended to put it, and there they turned back and ran for it. Like a superhero, however, Hacksaw came running to save the day, drug the cage himself the rest of the way, and took a long, pleasant sniff at the contraption. Gunpowder and raw meat... it must have been what pirate heaven smelled like. He ran back to the others with a skip in his step, frothing at the mouth to see something explode already.

The pirates waited, most of them taking cover behind the large chucks of rubble on the path from where they had entered the court. Smoke billowing from the cave told that something was stirring inside it, but they could not see it. The roaring was terrible, like the creature breathed thunder itself, and it belted out a long, piercing howl that made them cover their ears. Then, suddenly, nothing... the roaring receded, and all became still and quiet.

Too quiet. A moment passed. No one dared move. Every musket was aimed at the cave, waiting... but nothing was there anymore.

Eventually Karnage tiptoed back into the court, Kit following, and soon the rest of the crew did the same. They scratched their heads and muttered curiously, for when they truly listened now, they heard not much but their own footsteps. What was in the cave had disappeared.

"It ran away," said Ratchet.

"Aww, nuts!" pouted Hacksaw.

"This isn't right," said Kit, and he backed in toward the rubble, as if to grant himself a head start should the running commence. "The captain and I saw it, _it's_ not gonna run from us!"

"A animal big enough to make all that noise ain't just gonna shut up," argued Ratchet. "If it's still there, what's it waiting for?"

"How would _I_ know," snapped Kit. "What kind of giant lizard do I look like to... to..." Kit choked on his own words; chin fell open, and he cocked his head toward the smoking cavern. Two words came to mind: _thoughtful killer_. "It's waiting for us to go out there... so it can kill all of us at once."

From up above, laying low and hidden on the same balcony, Richter smirked. He was wondering who was going to be the first among them to figure that out, and leave it to the twelve-year-old to beat the rest of them to it. He was content to wait there and let the dragon do the work for him, just as long as he got to see it.

"Shoot it," snarled Karnage. The crew, staring in transfixed bewilderment, seemed to ignore him. Much more prominently, he whipped his cutlass out and pointed it at the cave. "All of you, now!" he barked. "_Fire_!"

At that, the pirates raised their guns and blasted a salvo of bullets across the courtyard. A silent moment of reprise followed again, but the reply came swiftly enough. The cave lit up brightly.

A huge wave of flame burst forth, rolling as a mighty bolder over Karnage's trap, which exploded into messy pieces. The pirates yelped and dove out of its fiery path before they were engulfed.

When they looked back up, the horned beast was snaking through the mouth of the cavern, crawling as a tiger stalks its prey, flame dripping from is maw, which gave particulr flare to its jagged fangs. Many an uncouth word was shouted at the sight of it, and more muskets fired.

The beast raised its head and sprawled its talons in front of itself; the ground cracked underneath. Like a vast cloak of darkness its wings draped over its back. While bullets bounced off its chest like pebbles, it swayed its head to and fro at the pirates, in a manner that it was aming the horns jutting from under its jaw at them, as if selecting who to impale.

"Bullocks, _run _for it!" someone shouted, and most of them had already began to, dropping their weapons and gear to hasten their speed.

The black dragon reared and jumped high, its wings swung forth and its talons swiped down on the top of the center zigurat, tearing it apart in mid-air, then it crashed down where the pirates were grouped, slamming its crown into the golden wall, with such force that those fleeing were knocked down from the sudden quake. Among them, Richter quickly found himself on ground, knocked off his hiding spot, underneath the beast's throat.

But then the dragon recoiled, and stumbled as if dazed. It was enough time for the pirates to get themselves a head start, Richter was right with them, making furiously fast tracks for daylight.

In a moment, the dragon collected itself, and lunged to give chase to them... but then it grinded to a halt, sniffed the air, and turned back to the wall...

Kit was leading the pack as far as the running went, for he was able to jump and scale the obstacles easier than the others. He turned back for a moment, looking for Karnage, who he thought was right behind him. He saw a lot of hard and scared faces huffing past him, but none belonging to the red wolf. At length Hal came plodding by, the folds on his belly bouncing and he breathed as if to deplete the world of its oxygen supply, but still running for all he was worth, and it looked like he was the last of the group.

"Hey! Where's the captain!" cried Kit.

"If he's as smart as he thinks," panted Hal, "already outside!"

Hal had to have been right, Kit thought. He must have missed him.

But Don Karnage was indeed still inside the stronghold; he had hid in one of the rooms in the wall, and there he knelt in the dark, gasping under a window. With his ear pressed to the wall, he could tell his crew had run, but the dragon-clawing and growling- was still there.

It was sniffing, and getting closer, until it was just right before him. He covered his mouth in hope it would not hear him breathe, and pushed his back against the wall. Somehow closing his eyes seemed like it would help.

And perhaps it was working... the beast moved its head away. Karnage opened an eye, wondering what it was doing, though he was hard pressed to stick his head out to see.

The dragon snorted and drew another deep breath; with a flap of its wings, a heavy gust brought a dust storm through the court and the rooms surrounding it so that Karnage was suddenly choking. He wondered if the beast had heard him cough...

A blazing inferno blasted over his head, heavy through the window like water jetting from a fissure in a great dam. Karnage screamed and dove to the floor. The room around him was set brightly aflame. As soon as the onslaught of fire ended, and the beast took another breath, he bolted in that brief reprise through another door and up a stairway.

"Why me!" he cried. So much for staying undetected. "Thirty of the world's ugliest ducks for it to chase, and _always _the overly handsome one gets-yiiiieee!"

Another blast of flame washed against his heels. The beast howled and swiped its talons across the doors and windows it saw its prey running past, ripping the glistening walls asunder.

From one connector to the other, Karnage sprinted through the rooms around the court, almost blindly, running up stairs, jumping down onto platforms, crashing into furniture and ancient knickknacks that were only dark shapes between him and the next exit. Through each pass of a window the beast was following, though he could never see its face so much as the fire spewing from its jaws.

He slid to a stop under another window, heaving. By his guess, he probably run a half-circle around the court, and now he was an area left under construction, where no lustrious gold covered the bare-rock framework being sculpted from the cavern. Smoke was everywhere, and he could hardly breath much less run any further.

Another barrage of flame roared over his head, but he sat still. His hands were trembling as he covered his face. When the fire stopped, he was left with only the thought that he could not elude this beast, that there was no escape... and one of his boots was slightly higher than the other. He blinked and squinted, and drew his feet closer for a better look. Sure enough... he must have been walking around looking lopsided all day. He wondered why no one had told him... he also wondered why the hell he was thinking about this when he was about to be roasted alive. He adjusted his boots anyway.

On the other side, however, the beast had suddenly gone quiet, as if it had given up.

In a ray of hope, Karnage raised his head up for peek, and was met by the beast's eye before his face... no pupils, just a shiny jet orb with blotches of red; it was like seeing his reflection in a blood-splattered mirror. Karnage was terror stricken, frozen in its gaze. If the eye was a window to the soul, then a soul the beast was wanting for; its gaze was empty and cold.

The dragon whisked its head away, reared back, then thrust forward with its fanged maw aimed straight for the captain's head. To Karnage it was all happening so slowly, the pounding beats of his heart ticking at a snail's pace. In another beat, he might have been able to count its teeth... but when that beat came, he realized how very much he wanted to live, and he leapt sideways.

It crushed through the stone structure with such wrathful force that it did not stop at one wall... apparently not to its intention, it burrowed its neck deep into the cavern, where the ancient builders had hollowed out spaces for further construction.

Karnage rolled on his back; it felt like he had been knocked down by an explosion. When he looked back, through all the smoke and dust left in the dragon's wake, he could not believe his luck. The beast's massive neck was stretched before him as it tried to jerk itself free. Perhaps the pirate gods were smiling upon him to slay the wretched creature, but in any case, he was starving to hurt it.

He drew his sword, charged and slashed at it, but its flesh was as giant scales of molten iron. With a furious cry, Karnage lunged his sword into it with all his might, and the blade sunk half-way. It was hard to tell if it even stung the beast. He spat on it and chose this as an opportune time to flee across the courtyard. He abandoned his sword and climbed down a set of ladders and balconies to the ground, only to be found trapped by the beast's swinging tail and talons, all swinging wildly and tearing apart everything they touched.

The dragon erupted with an ear-splitting howl that blew as a hurricane through the unseen labyrinth of passages of the old stronghold. In one last mighty pull, it freed itself and carved out pieces of the cavern wall with it, and in a furious rage it roared and shot a pillar of fire straight up, high enough to reach the firestone-laden dome.

The firestone exploded, hundreds to thousands of crystals at once, their dying light creating a huge fissure in the dome; the cracks grew and the last stones popped like fireworks across the breadth of the ceiling, until the dome itself crashed down on top of the beast in massive broken chunks...

Outside, while the pirates were still reeling, Kit meandered through the crowd, looking for the captain; the crew was still yet terrified and clamoring about what had happened; much of the talk was about getting back on the Iron Vulture where they would be safe. Gibber launched a flare was launched from a gun to signal the airship that they were on their way back.

Then the ground shook, and chaotic echoes were coming from the entrance of the stronghold. It sounded like heavy buildings were tumbling down. The pirates started as if something was going to punch its hand through the earth and drag them down a burning abyss. They fled the length of the canyon to where the Iron Vulture hovered, and its ladders weren't lowering fast enough for anyone.

"Captain!" hollered Kit. Anywhere he looked, and he had looked everywhere around, Karnage was not there. "Where _are _you?" He turned toward the cave, a dreadful frown crumpling his face. "_Please _don't be in there..."

There was no point in asking any of the others to go back, they were much too afraid for their own heads. Not that he could blame them for not taking odds against a giant fire-breathing nightmare, but to realize there was not one of them who could have cared less if anyone else had survived... he was getting sick of them already.

The clamor around him faded from his eyes and ears as he watched the cave. Any moment, he thought, Karnage was going to saunter out of there unscathed, brush himself off, a smug grin telling of a tale of how he laughed in death's face.

But he wasn't there.

Noisy rotor chops above them, the Iron Vulture dipped low, and the pirates began climbing its ladders, the bigger ones first, if only because they were able to shove the rest away.

Kit glanced up at the airship; considering what kind of bedlam was happening under his feet, the climb to safety was tempting. So much less tempting was to get stuck on the ship with the thugs presently brawling each other to get their feet off the ground first. To turn his back on either the ship or the cave... he inwardly remarked that he must have been crazy for it to have been such an easy choice.

He moved away from them all, and crouched toward the cave as a runner gets ready for a race. He could think of nothing that could help the captain, nor think of any sane assurance that if he ran back in there, he would ever make it out. More so, however, his gut told him 'nothing' was the one thing he could not do.

But then, at last, black patches on singed fur on his face, Karnage staggered into the daylight and fell exhausted to his knees, hardly ever as thankful to see the sky.

"Ha! I _knew _it!" cried Kit. "Hey! Are you okay?"

Karnage replied in turn with a nod, though he was wobbly enough that just about anything could have knocked him off kilter, and it happened to be his nose. He toppled face forward in the gravely dirt.

Kit grabbed him by the shoulder to help him up. "What happened?"

"It's gone," replied Karnage. "Everything!"

"The treasure?"

"Kapooey," sneered Karnage, shaking his head grimly. "Where do you think _you _were going?"

"What about the dragon?" asked Kit. "How'd you get away from it?"

At that, Karnage ducked down on all fours, scanning the ground like he was trying to trace the murmurs in the earth, which were growing softer and distant. "The volcano, which way was it?"

Kit pointed toward the south. "Over there." He suddenly realized with a sunken heart why the captain had made such an inquiry. "We can't stop it... can we."

"Who says no," huffed Karnage, a fiery gleam in his eye. He jumped up, twisted Kit around by his shoulders and giving him a shove toward the Iron Vulture. "Get on the ship!"

Don Karnage was not the last to exit the cave. Richter bid his time in the shadows, unnoticed in all the panic. Karnage stumbling past him took him by surprise, he did not see him until already outside, too far to chase him down with his bad leg. He watched Karnage yell what remained of his crew to make way for him at the nearest dangling ladder, making sure the boy got on first before he went up.

Richter grumbled over another missed opportunity, and seething began to limp out to swipe Karnage before he was able to climb away for good, damn all the risks of one of his lackeys plugging him with a bullet.

There was but one pirate left under Karnage, the stunted canine Sadie, and he still had his musket with him, though he never got a split second to as much aim it; he was too interested in the airship than paying attention to the looming blur hastily lurching from the corner of his eye. When he finally took hold of the rope ladder himself, he was abruptly yanked down, and after that only saw big knuckles cracking into his face.

Richter stared at his clenched fist with a great deal of admiration, particularly at the little splatters of blood and slobber on his knuckles. "Gah, that felt good!" he snorted.

Karnage was already halfway to the airship. He wondered what the particularly heavy tugging was below him, what was suddenly causing the ladder to sway as if a anchor had been tied to it... he could not remember Sadie being much more than scrawny. He looked down between his feet; Richter had grabbed hold and followed him, pulling himself up hand-over-hand using only his arms.

"Again?" cried Karnage. After that he kept his head up and climbed all the faster. "Why me! Always me!" Soon the ladder began to sway heavily, with Richter as the pendulum. Karnage kept climbing.

Once Karnage got to the top, Kit was there to offer him a hand aboard the ship, which Karnage blindy refused. Instead he hurriedly crawled on the deck and swung his cutlass free from his side, and began hacking the ropes with it.

Not that randomly odd behavior was uncommon among present company, but Kit raised an eyebrow at him anyway. "What'd the ladder ever to do you?"

"_He _is down there!" said Karnage, with another slash of his sword one side of the ladder was severed.

"Sadie?" asked Kit.

Karnage leaned over the edge of the deck, grasping his sword downward with both hands just in case Richter had already made it too high up. To his shock, however, the ladder was unoccupied. He leaned lower and took a more careful look at the ground... no Richter... and for him to pull a disappearing act would have been quite a feat.

Kit bent over for a peek at whatever was being searched for. "What?"

Karnage straightened up, scratching his head. He could not have just imagined it... could he? What he could not have imagined, however, was quite clear in the south. The mighty volcano was in an uproar.

"To the volcano!" ordered Karnage loudly. "Blast it! Everything we have, now!"

Most of the pirates were still collecting themselves, standing dazed on their feet. Ratchet spoke, "But boss, the city! They'll see the ship! They'll send their patrols after us!"

He received in quick reply a deathly ferocious glare and the tip of the Karnage's cutlass pressed between his eyes. "Any _other _concerns?" growled the captain.

Ratchet backpedaled shakily. "I'll g-go see if they need any help upstairs!"

And so the Iron Vulture adjusted its course, and pushed full steam ahead straight for the black plumes flowing from Mount Seren.

**

* * *

**

The Sea Duck soared high and fast on the route to Alpacito City, darting through thick, scattered clouds. Throughout the trip, Baloo could not keep his foot from tapping on the floorboard, as if coaxing his plane to go even faster, though the throttle was as far as it would go.

As their destination rolled in from the horizon, they saw little dots scattered in the sky ahead.

"Are those balloons?" asked Rebecca.

Baloo leaned forward and squinted to see. "Look like big ol' cargo zeps to me. Whole mess of 'em, too. Huh."

The zeppelins moved slowly, and the Sea Duck soon overtook them, flying in the midst of their numbers, which as Rebecca attempted to count there were at least twenty of them. Most of them were carrying a rather bulky payload on their bellies, each chained tight to a lift on cables. She caught the insignia on one of their tails, 'SK'.

"They're from Shere Khan," she said. "I wonder what they're up to?"

"Who knows," said Baloo. "Heh, if they're goin' where _we're _goin', they're gonna have a heck of a time findin' a parkin' spot!"

Rebecca took a more careful look at what they were hauling. "Tanks!"

Baloo blinked. "Yer welcome, but for what?"

"No, they've got _tanks _strapped underneath them," she said. "Where could they be going?"

Baloo brought the plane down low to prepare for a landing, and Rebecca stood up, pointing out the windshield. "Baloo, look at that now," she said. Two heavy gunships sat outside the city's harbor; massive, ironclad vessels that overwhelmed the bay. Their powerful cannons were all poised toward the jungle.

"Now _those _belong to Shere Khan, too" remarked Baloo.

"I don't like the looks of this," said Rebecca. "What does Khan think he's going to do with all those weapons?"

"Ol' Khan can dance the merengue on a salsa bar for all I care," said Baloo. "We ain't exactly gonna stick around to sight-see once we get Kit!"

They moored the Sea Duck at the city docks and hurried on foot to the museum. Tired and out of breath, Baloo stopped just short of the entrance and turned toward Rebecca. "Uh, the gal in here, when she sees me, she might try to... uh..." He faltered for the words, but then shrugged; the heck with it, he thought. "Well, you'll see."

But there was no one to meet them at the reception desk. They only saw a few visitors milling around the aisles. They walked further inside and heard voices carrying over from the back, not yelling, but obviously riled, and one sounded like Tyler. They heard part of the conversation as they approached:

"What's the use," said Bagheera. "Even if we didn't have a monster to contend with, we're not going to get another ounce of gold out of there before Khan has his fleet ready."

"The discovery is still ours," said Tyler. "That has to count for... well, something."

"Yes, probably a nice round figure," said Bagheera. "Like zero."

"We found it," insisted Tyler. "Even if all else should go to the dogs... well, it still means something in itself."

They found a room with the door ajar; Baloo knocked and pushed it open. There, Tyler, Bagheera, and Myra sat slouching around a table with a telephone and empty coffee pot on the middle; they all had heavy eyes that looked like they had not had much sleep lately. Tyler and Myra sat opposite each other, Myra's hands loosely on top of Tyler's, and Tyler's hands loosely over a small, golden dragon figurine. Tyler regarded it like he was staring at a very wishful dream, and Myra beheld him sympathetically.

Their camping equipment was scattered across the floor. Maria the receptionist was there, too, sitting next to a radio, listening to local news chatter. She was not somber like the others, and she was particularly not somber when she spotted Baloo.

"_Popi!_" she cried, wiggling in her seat excitedly. "You come back to _see _me again!"

Baloo grinned, a bit nervously, and tipped his hat at Myra, though he was not nearly the mood to greetings, introductions, or small talk. "Look, folks, we got a telegram sayin' that you found..."

He was interrupted by Bagheera slamming his fist on the table. "You didn't _tell _them in the message?" he asked Tyler.

"Of course, but there was only so much room for detail," said the fox. "I got in the choice words _you _wanted to add... well, some of them, anyway."

Myra sighed at their bickering. "I'm sorry, Baloo, but he's not here," she said. "He... left."

"Left?" asked Baloo. "Left _where_?"

"We found them in the mountains," explained Bagheera, huffily. "We found him stranded in the jungle, he was with that confound pirate Karnage. We captured Karnage and cared for that brat so that he was safe and sound, and he repaid us by willingly and _very intently _setting Karnage free while we slept and robbed us blind!"

"You just stop the clock a minute, pal," scowled Baloo, taken aback. "That ain't Kit yer talkin' about!"

"There has to be some mistake," said Rebecca, squeezing into the room from behind Baloo. "Baloo's right, that doesn't sound like Kit at all."

Tyler explained it further to them, elaborating on how they had Karnage securely captured, how they held small fortune in valuable trinkets, how Bagheera was awoken at the business end of a knife, and how Kit was responsible for their loss.

"I'm terribly sorry, Baloo," said Tyler, "but it's the truth. I sent the telegram because I felt you should know, you seemed like the closest thing to family. But your lad double-crossed us. We would have seen him back to you, he knew that. It seems to me he made his choice."

Bagheera slumped forward and nestled his chin in his arms, fuming more so every time he thought of what happened. His claws absently scratched slow lines on the table. "I'd like to give that little hellion a _thrashing _he won't soon forget," he muttered.

"You watch it, buster" warned Baloo. "He ain't a bad kid!"

"Well he's not exactly a good one, by my count," replied Bagheera. "_Bad _doesn't begin to describe him. Liar, thief, backstabber, well then, we're getting warmer-oof!" With a stern look, Myra kicked him under the table to let him know he was not helping matters.

"But there must be more to the story, some explanation," said Rebecca. "Kit would want nothing to do with the pirates, and he's no thief..."

"You mean _anymore_?" sneered Bagheera.

Baloo's eyes narrowed at him. "What's that s'posed to mean?"

"Come now, Baloo," said Tyler, "it must not be that hard to consider... if he was willingly a pirate before you knew him, well, how well do you _truly _know him?"

Rebecca looked at Baloo worriedly, she thought he might take that question like a sucker punch to the jaw... but he was still and defiant. "Enough to know that he _ain't _a bad kid," he said.

Maria clicked her tongue sympathetically, but turned her ear to the radio, where something was being said about the volcano, which since having shown signs of eruption the day before, had warrented much interest among the city news.

Bagheera was about to unleash another rant, but Tyler nudged his shoulder to stop him. The fox frowned at Baloo, sadness and empathy in his eyes. "I remember when you got into that fight at your friend's club... Louie's, was it... you didn't see that boy's face when you fell... neither did anyone else in this room."

The furrowed grimace across Baloo's face softened.

"Maybe there is more to the story," said Tyler. "I don't see it, honestly, but... bloody, you could be right. I hope you are. I don't know where he is now, but I think it's a safe bet wherever he is, he's with the pirates."

"That just brings us back to square one," sighed Rebecca. "The pirates haven't been seen all week."

"_Piratas!_" cried Maria, pointing at the radio. "They see their flying ship!" She rushed to the nearby window and gazed into the sky, as if hoping to catch a glimpse of something exciting (or, someone). The tip of her tail was twirling. "Oooh... Don Ka_rr_rnage is here," she purred. Myra looked at her like she was insane.

Tyler got out of his seat, his head tilted at her. "The Iron Vulture? Here?"

"_Where_?" asked Baloo anxiously. "What did they say?"

"By the _volcán_!" replied Maria. "The volcano!"

"Mount Seren," said Tyler, with a snap of his fingers. He grabbed a backpack from the floor and began searching it for a map. "It's due southeast of here, on the other side of the jungle. One moment, I'll show you!"

"No need, we'll find it," said Baloo, already heading out the door. "C'mon, Beckers, let's go find us a big metal buzzard!" He turned to Tyler once last time before leaving in a hurry. "Thanks!"

"Good luck," nodded Tyler.

"They're going to rush headlong into that pirate ship," sighed Bagheera.

Tyler opened the map across the table and sat down again. "Yes, they are."

"And for what, so they can hear it from the whelp's own mouth that he wants nothing to do with them... _before _they're shot and skewered?"

"You don't know that."

"Am I to understand, then," said Bagheera, "after what he did to us, you believe he has a shred of decency in him?"

"It's a complicated world, chap," Tyler shrugged. "I don't know what to believe."

**

* * *

**

Mad Dog stomped down the port side of the Iron Vulture's lowest deck, closing up the last of the hatches and pulling up the ladders. He hated the work, the length of the ladders did not make them easier or faster to pull back up. Dumptruck was assigned the other half of the ship.

Mad Dog was halfway through with the task, in a dark corridor blinded by the sharp pillars of light let in by the open hatches. He reached out and closed one more hatch, and saw a large, broad shouldered figure limping toward him in wide strides.

"Dumptruck! What gives? How come you ain't helpin'!"

Like wielding a sledgehammer, 'Dumptruck' swung his arm back and lunged it forward with a tight fist into Mad Dog's crown.

Richter spat over the pirate's unconscious body.

When he was following Karnage on the ladder, the wolf turning around on him with a weapon was predictable; Richter had swung from ladder to ladder under the length of the ship, and climbed aboard without anyone being the wiser. Mad Dog was the first many, he thought, as many as it would take to get to Karnage. That was business now; any body count thereafter would be recreational.

He had two grenades left on his belt. He took one, pulled the pin, and dropped it beside Mad Dog, and gave it a tap with his boot to tuck it under the pirate's head. Then he walked away, waiting for the right moment, then raised his hand and began counting down on his fingers: Five, four, three, two, one...

A blast rocked the airship's iron bones. Richter blinked... it was not his grenade. To his chagrin, that one was a dud. Another blast. It was cannon fire.

**

* * *

**

The Sea Duck had plunged into a bank of low-lying clouds over the jungle. Rebecca held a pair of binoculars readily, but they were none the good for looking into an opaque whiteout. Baloo kept the plane's throttle at full; he leaned forward anxiously, and had not much to say since leaving the museum, though he often had his bottom lip clenched in his teeth.

As they broke out of the clouds, the Iron Vulture was suddenly looming before them, indeed; it had its two giant front cannons extended and was launching a brutal wave of artillary on the fuming Mount Seren.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Baloo. "Looks like they're busy!"

"_Very _busy," said Rebecca. "What do we do now?"

"We get in there an' find Kit," said Baloo.

"Oh, is _that _all!"

The Sea Duck was approaching the Iron Vulture from its flank. Baloo's hands were tight around the yoke, and his eyes darted several places and back again: at the cannons, at what they were shooting (which was apparently nothing), and where, if anywhere, he was going to be able to land his plane. The front of the ship was out of the question. He considered the flight deck on the top, and pulled the Sea Duck upward.

"Hold on, Becky! We're goin' in!"

Rebecca's fingers dug into the arms of her chair. She could feel the shock of the Iron Vulture's blasting cannons in her bones. Searching out the window to her right, she was dumbfounded as to what the pirates were raising such a ruckus over. Watching where the shells hit the volcano, she took the binoculars and zoomed in... in a beat, she dropped the binoculars on the floor.

Her voice was quivering. "Um... Baloo?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't know what they're shooting at, but..." She paused, tilting her head questioningly, as if she very much could not believe her own eyes.

"Becky? What's the matter?"

"I think they need to keep shooting!"

Baloo leaned over to look through the passenger window. The slopes of the volcano were being shattered, but then something moved from inside the volcano, a dark shape, very large, sweeping across the broad caldera. In a burst, the great black dragon jumped forth from the smoke.

Kit stood on the lower jaw of the Iron Vulture's open prow, looking on with wide eyes and covering his ears. Karnage was beside him, gritting his teeth against the wind. "Keep it up!" he hollered. "Blast it! _Blast _it!"

The dragon shrieked as the exploding shells tore into its armor-like flesh. It recoiled down the volcano's slope, digging in with its talons and shielding itself with its wings, which were torn by the airship's relentless attack.

"It's working!" cried Kit. "We're beating it! We're...!"

"Out of ammo!" shouted Will from a hangar catwalk. He was running to the bridge, shouting orders: "Front guns are reloading! Turn the ship around! Get the broadsides shootin' before it's too late!"

Kit and Karnage started when the airship's cannons suddenly went silent. "I _hate _when that happens," Karnage muttered.

The dragon was stunned, but recovered at speed. It climbed to the top of the volcano, roared in thunderous bloodlust, and cast its massive wings into the air. With the sun on its back, its shadow blotted the jungle in nightfall.

Now in the open, those watching saw it as it truly was in its hellish entirety from head to tail and the full breadth of its wingspan, lengths to which not even the Iron Vulture measured. Against the sun it appeared pitch as a living shadow, its form smoldering hot and featureless from a distance save for the sun piercing the tears in its wings and the silhouette of its fangs in the red glow of its fiery gullet.

It leapt from the mount in a dark bolt, the vast jungle canopy bent under the flap of its wings, and it soared swiftly toward the Iron Vulture, but quite erratically as it turned out, like it had once known and forgotten the art of flight. It plunged into the jungle, tearing a great clearing of uprooted trees in its wake. The trees standing in front if it, and every creature haplessly living among them, were consumed in a wrathful inferno.

The Iron Vulture began to turn away, and the beast did not like that one bit. It cast a long stream of fire at the airship, blasting the bottom of its hull.

"Baloo, no!" warned Rebecca, as the Sea Duck swung ever closer to the airship. "Don't! We can't get near that thing!"

"Kit's _on _that ship," Baloo said, in such an insisting manner that it closed any debate on the spot. "I'd buckle up if I were you!"

The dragon's wings caught the wind once more, and it leapt into the air, this time with more success, and grasped for the Iron Vulture. In mid-air, it collided with the ship from underneath, and took hold! With its talons shredding and twisting shards of metal from the ship's purple sides, bit into the prow as to gnaw it off.

The Iron Vulture swung wildly and sunk toward the ground. The dragon was wrestling it out of the sky.

From the Sea Duck, Rebecca yelped and Baloo nearly jumped out of his seat. "No! Kit!" he yelled. He watched the ship get pulled down, trance-like, caught in a dreadful fear. But then the Iron Vulture suddenly fell less quickly, and just as it was low enough where the dragon's tail touched the ground, the airship's rotors were spinning so fast that smoke churned from them, and it hovered until the dragon finally slipped away and fell to the earth on its back. The Iron Vulture, however, in its utmost test of engine strength, shot straight skyward like a rocket.

The dragon, with no hesitation, took off after it, flying in wide, swift circles as it ascended.

"Jiminy," exhaled Baloo; he wiped beads of sweat from his brow, then slammed his fist into the dash. "What _is _that thing?" He brought the Sea Duck up, keeping an eye on the Iron Vulture, which was just about leveling out, but the dragon was there too, and it was swinging around for another attack. "What if I can't save him," he mumbled.

"I know you want to get him out of there," said Rebecca, "but we _can't_...!" She paused. Baloo looked lost and panicked, like he was about to have a breakdown. She sat back in her seat and sighed, considering that she volunteered for this trip. "We _can't _leave him there, you've been right all along. We never knew how we were going to get him back, once we found the pirates."

"Some way, somehow," said Baloo.

Rebecca nodded. "Exactly. So, just... sic 'em!"

**

* * *

**

"Since when do you have dragon-proof planes? It'll _barbeque _anything that gets near it!" Kit tailed Karnage up the decks toward the bridge, trying to be a voice of reason while the captain hollered to for his pilots to get the attack planes in the air. There was no easy task bringing anything to order at this point; the entire ship was disheveled, alarm sirens were blaring throughout, half the crew was taking pot shots at the dragon with the broadside cannons, and there was yet the occasional pirate running and screaming at random.

They were halfway across a catwalk over the hangar when the Iron Vulture was slammed with a violent collision and reeled steeply to the side. All those standing on their feet were thrown to the floor, and Kit and Karnage had to grab onto the railing to keep from falling over it.

In an single angry growl, Karnage cursed luck, fate, gravity, the dragon, and the entire world for bringing him into this mess. "We have to get it away from the ship!"

"I'd rather take my chances!" said Kit. "If you go out there, you're not coming back!"

"_You _want to be in charge?"

"Yeah!"

Karnage blinked. "Well... tough!"

A strange yelp cried from behind them; it was Hacksaw, tumbling onto the catwalk from an adjacent corridor, and when he finally rolled to a halt, his eyes were spinning and he had a broken axe handle in his hand.

And there was Richter, staggering from behind him. He yanked with his teeth and spat out the pin from his last grenade. His face was scratched and bruised, and a trickle of blood dropped from his chin. Hacksaw was just one of several he brawled with.

Kit's jaw came unhinged. "Where did _he _come from?"

Karnage froze and hesitated like he had been caught in a sniper's scope. The grizzly was holding the ticking grenade purposely, waiting for just the right time, so that when he threw it there would be no delay in the explosion. "Watch it, boy, get-_jump_!"

Richter wound up as a baseball pitcher throws a speed ball and launched the grenade at aim for the captain's chest. Karnage leapt low under the catwalk railing, pulling Kit by the arm with him, and they dropped two stories to the hangar floor under the ear-popping _bang!_

Karnage landed on his backside at the side of a CT-37, groaning. At this rate he longed to be back in the jungle riding that llama, when his tail had _no _feeling...

"How about a little _warning _next time?" griped Kit, from the bottom of the plane's cockpit.

"I said _jump_!" snapped Karnage.

"Yeah, _jump_! Not 'let me break your shoulder for you'!"

"Will you shut up and...!" Above them, the catwalk was creaking awfully. There was a hole in it where the grenade went off, and the walk was held together by twisted metallic threads, about to collapse with Richter trapped in the middle, and where best it would fall but right on top of them. "Get out of there, hurry!"

Kit began to slide on his stomach out the side of the side of the cockpit. "I'm trying, I-augh! _Yeow_!" His cry was sharp and most definitely from pain. He dropped to the floor, clutching his right foot.

"What _now_?" asked Karnage impatiently.

"My foot!" cried Kit. "Gosh darn it, I-ow! It _hurts_!"

"Bad timing," huffed the captain. Bolts from the catwalk were popping, and it was ripping apart. He grabbed Kit by both harms and helped him hop away. "Badder than the baddest timing ever of all time!"

Just then the Iron Vulture suffered another massive hit, this time the dragon-it's roar rattling the hull-slammed into it from underneath, and a great dent rose from the hangar floor. The catwalk severed in two, swung apart and crashed with Richter going along for the ride. It missed Kit and Karnage, but the same fortune was not bestowed the pirates' planes nearby. Notably, as Karnage was quick to notice, with much dismay, his own tri-wing attack plane had its nose and wings clipped in the wreckage. And the wreckage... it was moving. It was Richter.

"Not my plane!" groaned Karnage. He drew his cutlass and waited with his wolvish fangs bared. Kit leaned on him on one foot, looking for help to call, but for all the pirates on the ship, none were in the area.

"We can't deal with him too!" said Kit. "What now?"

But Karnage was bristling and determined. He put his hand on Kit's shoulder and spoke solemnly, "No more running."

Just as Richter emerged from the heap of metal around Karnage's plane, the Iron Vulture was struck once more, violently, this time somewhere from the aft, for the back of the ship was heaved upward, and, let alone the crew, every object not bolted down on every deck went flinging and crashing. In the hangar, planes, machinery, and spilled crates came sliding toward the nose of the ship like an overwhelmed dam, the flood of which overtook Kit and Karnage as they tumbled across the floor.

When the airship finally leveled again, and the screeching of metal grinding on metal eased, Kit raised his head up and cracked it on the belly of a CT-37. Between its pontoons, he saw no sign of Karnage and Richter... at least not for long. He crawled from the plane, slowly, cringing at throbbing pain in his toe, and Richter was there just several steps away. Somewhere in the disheveled clutter, the grizzly had found a large and long broken pipe. He eyed Kit with a cruel smirk, and weilded the pipe like a baseball bat as he got to his feet.

"It's never the healthy zebra that get eaten by the lion," Richter said. He crept toward Kit with an dark and immense glow of satisfation. "Damn things keep getting away one way or the other, and there's so many in the heard that the lion has to worry about gettin' stampeded. So the lion keeps trying, picks the same one out of the heard each time, and every swipe and bite, hurts it more, until finally the zebra won't be able to run away anymore."

"I'm... I'm not running from you. _No one _is," replied Kit, though with Richter standing over him with such bloodthirsty intentions, his defiance was betrayed by a fearful glistening welling in his eyes.

"Did I mention that it's usually the _baby _zebras, too?" Richter lifted the pipe over his head, ready to smash it into the boy's bones, but he paused, and tilted his head just enough to have an ear listening behind him. Suddenly he swung the pipe and his entire body around in a half-circle, when Don Karnage ducked just in time to miss having his skull crushed.

Karnage lunged back up with his cutlass leading the charge, and thrust it at the grizzly's chest. Richter got the pipe back in front of him barely fast enough to deflect Karnage's blade; Karnage ducked under his arms until he was out of pipe-swinging range, and stopped to lock eyes with his foe.

"This ain't a bullfight, you little roach," snorted Richter.

"Oh no?" retorted Karnage. "You know your foul-looking face _does _remind me of a bull, but not the side with the horns!"

Richter laughed raunchily. "Hell, I'm glad I didn't kill you before now. It wouldn't have been such a pleasure!"

Crouched with his feet ready to fly in any direction, Karnage was eager for Richter to rush at him with another heavy swing of that pipe, where he could sidestep him and land his cutlass where it counted... though perhaps his eagerness was a bit too transparent. Richter dropped the pipe and slowly rubbed his hands together as he stared the pirate down.

"I killed a varan the other day by ripping its jaw apart," he said. "You're a lower lifeform than a lizard, but I wouldn't mind extending the same kind of courtesy."

"If _I_ were you, I would not consider myself so qualified to be the smart-guy," said Karnage, a michevious twinkle in his eye.

"Well, I suppose you're gonna tell me why not," said Richter.

"_You _turned your back on the boy."

At that, Richter started, and quickly turned around... and saw nothing... but the distraction it was all Karnage wanted. He charged braced to plunge his cutlass into anything he ran into.

Richter pivoted back around with a brutal swat to Karnage's shoulder, and the captain was knocked far across the floor, sliding close to the Iron Vulture's nose. He lost his cutlass, which slid even closer to the edge.

"Hey, don't fall off!" hollered Richter, and he chuckled at himself. "Too quick! I want this to hurt!"

Kit was crawling, hopping, sliding-whatever he could do-over and around all the clutter in the hangar, on a mission to find help before it was too late for the captain. But when he looked over his shoulder, and saw Karnage dazed and not very far from a deadly fall, he feared it was too late already.

Outside the the prow, the daylight was eclipsed with a the gust and roar of a thunderstorm as the black dragon soared just in front of ship. In a beat it was gone just as quickly as it appeared, but not before it flicked the ship with an upward snap of its wing. Kit lost his balance in the sudden jolt, just as he lunged toward the bottom of a stairwell leading up the decks to the bridge. He fell on top of a hard object with enough pointy ends to not feel so good on the ribs. With an grumbled curse he was about to swat it away, and suddenly regarded it contemplativley, darkly, and not with a little desperation.

It was a musket re-engineered as grappling hook gun. And, from deeds in his yesteryear known only to pirates and their plundered victims, he had experience using it, including for more than it was intended.

He swung it over his shoulder and hobbled away from the stairwell...

Following the last pass of the dragon, Richter frowned, realizing he _had _to be quick and then find a parachute, lest he wait until the Iron Vulture was ripped in half. He limped hurriedly toward Karnage as the pirate was getting up; if he could have mustered the speed, he would given him a running kick to punt him into the open sky and oblivion... but then, getting in a few extra fist pummels was not such a bad alternative.

Breathing heavily with his face against the floor, Karnage glared at Richter's incoming boots and spat. A feral anger burned in his heart, kindled in seething growls, and it burned hotter than any sense of fear for life. He waited for Richter to get close, right up until the grizzly reached for him...

Karnage sprang to his feet and stunned Richter with a fierce blitz of knuckles, claws, and teeth. In no time he was on top of Richter's shoulders, wailing away relentlessly on the back of his head.

The big bear staggered and yelped and his arms flailing as he tried to smack the pirate loose. Then he finally got his hand on a wrinkle on Karnage's coat, and whipped him to the floor. Karnage jumped up like he had landed on a spring, but this time was grabbed by the neck and pinned down by a pinching grip. Richter piled the bulk of his weight onto the pirate's throat, frothy drool on the corner of his lip, taking vengeful pleasure in the pirate's red eyes and agonized wheezing.

"I'm gonna throw you off your own godforsaken ship," he growled. Starting on his good leg, Richter stood up, hoisting Karnage over his head in a one-handed choke hold. He admired the sight greatly, thinking it was the next best thing to seeing the pirate's head in a noose. "But first, I just want to know one thing," he said. While Karnage kicked futilely, Richter brought him closer so he could speak close to the pirate's ear. "Does this hurt?"

Karnage wrangled his fingertips slightly in Richter's grip, just enough to utter a few words. "You turned your back on the boy," he croaked. He closed his eyes, as if flinching.

A chill went up Richter's spine, perhaps by some uncanny instinct or premonition he sensed that Karnage was not bluffing. He turned around, Karnage still firmly in his clutches, and there was Kit, fallen on his side, eyeing him coldly down the barrel of the grappling gun. Negotiations were through before Richter even opened his mouth to bargain. Kit yanked the trigger, the hook shot forth with bullet-like velocity, slammed into Richter square in the chest and ricocheted away. Like a great and ancient sequoia cut down in the forest, the grizzly tottered backwards slowly and fell stiffly. His shoulders went over the edge of the prow, and in an instant the rest of him slid off as well, though with a last bit of his wits he caught onto the ledge with one hand.

Karnage writhed on the floor, holding his neck, gasping precious air back into his lungs. When he saw Richter's hand clamped onto the ledge, he crawled for his cutlass nearby, and back to Richter to relieve him of his fingers.

"Wait, don't!" rasped Richter. Karnage peered over the ledge, with his blade pointed at the grizzly's head. He saw fear in Richter's eyes, panicked and pleading for mercy. It took him aback, and he allowed Richter to get a second hand on the ledge. "You... y-you win..."

Karnage was quick to snap out of it. He brought the hilt of his sword over his head and was about to run Richter through, the ire of all the pain and trouble this foe had forced upon him flashing boldly before his eyes. His arms were practically frozen, though, hardened like cement, and he felt Kit staring at him like a hotlamp against his back. He gripped his cutlass tighter... this was between him and Richter, who he had already made the mistake of sparing before.

"You don't have to do this," piped Richter weakly. "I give up!"

"Shut up," snarled Karnage. The fact that he was even still there to tell him to 'shut up' was driving him mad; this was taking way too long. Every piratical fiber in his body was screaming with clear directive to end Richter's existence before hesitation cost him dearly. But then, Richter was barely breathing, and could not muster the strength to pull himself up. Would it have been so heartless and cold-blooded to slay him when he was so vulnerable? And what was wrong with heartless, he questioned. Heartless had made him feared, had made him criminally wealthy, and had established his command.

It also lost him the one person in the world who thought something good of him.

Karnage grumbled resignedly, lowered his blade to his side, and at length moved away from the edge. If he wasn't going to let Richter have it, he certainly wasn't going to help him up. He grinned, victoriously, and expected some nod of approval from the boy, but Kit was pointing frantically for him to turn around.

Richter had lunged up in a last-ditch effort and with a swipe of his arm swept Karnage's feet away, and grabbed hold of Karnage's leg to pull him over. He received, in quick turn, the heel of the pirate's boot kicked into his nose; there was a snap of broken cartilage and Richter was gone.

On board the Sea Duck, Baloo was distantly circling around the front of the Iron Vulture, glancing for any landing opportunity out his side window, when he saw a large figure plummeting from the airship. "Holy guacamole," he started, "somebody's fallin'!"

Not three syllables into Baloo's exclamation did the dragon come swooping down under the Iron Vulture and caught the falling body in its maw; with a shake of its head, spat it back out in several burning pieces.

"What? What was it?" asked Rebecca.

Baloo gulped, speechless. If not for his gray fur, he would have been pale as a hospital sheet. "Oh... nothin'... nothin' at all..." His voice was shaky, and suddenly he shouted, "Whoa, watch out!"

They yelped as the the Sea Duck went into a rolling tumble, caught in a swift storm of smoke and darkness as the dragon's soared above them.

"It can't slow down," Baloo remarked, as he figured out which way was up. An idea was brightening his countenance. "It's like a plane that's too heavy... if it can't keep the wind on its wings fast enough, it can't fly!" He turned his plane straight for the Iron Vulture. "That's why it's makin' long passes, it can't cut corners this high! If we can get in there while it's flyin' away... yeah, it's crazy enough to work!"

Rebecca smiled through her teeth. "Crazy. Yay."

**

* * *

**

Don Karnage had not a moment's respite over the fate of one enemy; the deadliest yet, in his plain view, was turning sharply to make another charge at the Iron Vulture. Against the bright horizon it appeared as a dark tear in the very sky, and it seemed but an instant before it was approaching again. He scampered from the ship's prow fast enough that his boots barely caught traction on the metal floor.

"Nice shot," panted Karnage. Kit threw the grappling gun away, with much disdain for it, and Karnage helped him to stand on his one good foot. "Though late as always, of course."

"Yeah, _real _nice," Kit said grimly. "I made him fall."

"_You _did?" Karnage sputtered a weak guffaw. "Stop flattering yourself!"

Will, Dumptruck and Mad Dog saw them as he was running through the hangar, calling for the captain. "What the heck are you guys doin' out there?" Will cried. "Trollin' dragon bait?"

"Here it comes!" screamed Mad Dog.

They could hear the wind whipping under its wings as it descended upon the Iron Vulture, this time not as a charging bull but as a perching hawk; it landed on top of the airship on all fours, talons piercing and clamping concrete and metal, with its wings wrapped around and under the hull. The ship's rotors chipped at its feet, which apart from annoying it seemed to pique its curiosity. While the airship was struggling not to sink toward the jungle faster than it was, the dragon glanced around, as if trying to figure out what type of creature it was fighting.

Any conclusions it drew were unlikely satisfying, as it was quick to howl furiously and unleash a river of flame over the flight deck. When that yielded no painful response from its giant rival, the beast in two sweeping strikes obliterated the ship's rising rudder and smashed apart four rotors before fanning its wings and leaping into the air. The Iron Vulture was sent spinning and tilting erratically behind it.

Meanwhile the Sea Duck stayed on straight aim for the pirate ship. Rebecca looked at the spinning Iron Vulture through her fingers as she covered her face. "You were _saying _it couldn't slow down?"

"Hey, they never taught dragons in ground school!" said Baloo. The airship had become somewhat stable again, the Sea Duck was poised to make a very ungraceful landing into the Vulture's gaping mouth. "If there's one good thing, it's that I've at least done this once before!"

"And you tore the plane in half doing it!"

"Yeah, well... practice makes perfect," he muttered nervously. He lowered the plane's landing gear with a pull of a lever.

The Iron Vulture's hangar was now flooded with clamoring pirates looking for parachutes and planes that had not yet been wrecked too far to fly.

"We gotta abandon ship!" pleaded Ratchet to the captain. "We ain't got a choice! One more hit like that and we're through!"

"I will _not _lose the Iron Vulture!" fumed Karnage. "We can draw it away and blast it with the big guns!"

"Boss, we can't play cat and mouse with that thing!" said Will. "It's... it's!" The furious and defiant glint in the captain's eyes told him exactly how much he was considering his options. Will sighed. "For cryin' out loud, then, at least make sure to take Dumptruck with you. Maybe if it eats _him _it'll leave the rest of us alone!"

"Get the guns loaded!" ordered Karnage. "Go! And get a path cleared for these piece-of-junk planes!"

"You gotta listen to these guys for once!" said Kit. Stepping in front of Karnage didn't keep him from being brushed aside as the captain went for the nearest flyable CT-37.

"Go bandage your foot," was all Karnage would reply.

"It's just a ship," said Kit, limping and hopping hastily to keep up with his steps. "I'm _sure _you can steal another just like it!" He yanked on Karnage's coat, but it was so futile that he might as well had been invisible. "Cap-tain, you better not!" If there was nothing else to grab his attention, he ditched tugging on his coat and went for his tail instead.

"Yeow!" yelped Karnage. He turned and slapped Kit's hands away. "Stop that!"

"What do you think you're gonna _do _if it chases you, huh?" asked Kit angrily. "What's worth it? Only an _idiot _would be caught flying out there!"

"Look out, incoming!" a pirate yelled, and the crew braced themselves for another thrashing from the dragon, though instead the Sea Duck burst inside, slamming its belly harshly on the floor. From there its braking landing wheels squealed and burned marks in their tracks, and the seaplane knocked its own path clear through the clutter of the hangar, until it skid to an halt over the bomb bay doors.

Karnage groaned lengthily. "Well, you were _right _for once, boy."

Kit's eyes were wide in disbelief. "No way... Baloo? Baloo!" A big smile swept his face, and then vanished as he glanced at Karnage. "Uh-oh..."

"The _big _uh-oh," said Karnage. To the crew, which was about to circle the intruding plane, he yelled, "Guns and planes, I gave you orders! _I_ will deal with this fool Baloo."

"Ha! We're in!" cheered Baloo. "In one piece, too!"

Rebecca sunk in her seat before any bullets started flying through the windshield. "Do you think anyone noticed?" she asked dryly.

"Hey, there's Kit!" said Baloo. "He sees me! Keep the engines warm, I'm gonna get him!"

As Baloo jumped out of the plane, Rebecca held her tongue to offer any words of caution or concern. At this juncture, 'be careful' seemed like it would have done a fat load of good. She had a sinking feeling, though she realized it was not her stomach... it was the plane. The airship's bomb bay doors, weakened from the dragon's strikes, were creaking open.

"Lil' Britches!" bellowed Baloo. "I'm here, kiddo!" He saw Kit limping, and seeing he was hurt made a beeline for him with open arms, not so much noticing who the boy was holding onto to keep his balance. He was met quite suddenly by the sharp end of Don Karnage's cutlass.

"Well well, look who came all this way to waste his pathetic time!" said Karnage. He kept one hand on Kit's shoulder, drawing him to his side and out of Baloo's reach. "I will give you _one chance_ to drag your bozo of a bear-naper self far, far away! One chance before you begin to _bleed_."

Sword or no sword, Baloo's fists were clenched fiercely. They glared at each other with menacing wagers of just who exactly was going to get hurt. "Let 'im go, Karny! I ain't leavin' without Kit!"

"_He _is exactly where he belongs!" growled Karnage.

"He's _my _navigator!"

"He was my boy _before _he was your navigator!"

"Gu-uys," said Kit, "this really _is _a bad time!"

The Iron Vulture was slammed again by another vicious blow, and with a loud electric buzz, every light inside went dark, some of them exploding. Baloo fell on his backside, and Karnage to his knee, though even through the rocking quake he was adamant not to lose his position between Baloo and the boy.

The captain had a grimace of absolute dread as he regarded the airship's fate; its engines sputtered and wheezed, and its nose dipped toward the treetops; were it a living beast it was gasping its last breaths and about to utter a death rattle. There was smoke creeping across the ceiling from fires unseen, and the phrase 'abandon ship' was being hollered left and right. He could see outside the prow how high the ship was yet flying, and once the engines gave out altogether... he realized not everyone was bound to survive.

Abruptly, with a loath reluctance, he pushed Kit in front of Baloo. "Here! Get him out of here before-_just go_!" he snapped.

"Hey, wait a minute!" cried Kit, but Karnage was already darting to the nearest attack plane.

Baloo snatched Kit in his arms and ran for the Sea Duck. "C'mon, better not wait for a second invitation!" he said.

Kit looked back at Karnage, watching him jump into a CT-37 and fire up its engine; he could not help but wonder if that would be the last he ever saw of him.

"What the-my plane!" shouted Baloo. The bomb bay doors were cracked almost halfway, and the seaplane was sinking fast from the ship. "Hold on, kiddo, gotta double-time it!"

"Baloo! Kit!" Rebecca held the cockpit door open, shouting for them to hurry. Just as Baloo lunged to get one hand on the plane's door, the floor collapsed, and he, Kit, and the Sea Duck plummeted toward the jungle.

The Sea Duck fell immediately into a flat spin, Baloo did all he could just to hang on, but Kit had slipped from him. Baloo yelped and tried to swipe him out of the air; he could not reach before Kit was tumbling away, his crying out for help more piercing than the wind roaring in their ears.

With Rebecca's help, dizzied as she was, Baloo pulled himself into the cockpit and into the pilot's seat. "Where's _Kit_?" she asked.

"Workin' on it!" said Baloo. The world outside the windshield was whisking by in a blurry circle. In a panicked frenzy, he flipped a number of switches and wrangled the flight yoke for control. "C'mon, baby, pull it together! Pull it together _right now_!"

As if by his command, the Sea Duck turned a steady course. Baloo spied Kit falling, already much lower than the plane. He steered into a fast dive and rolled down his side window, with his eyes solely locked on the boy. He had mere seconds.

By foot and yard, the Sea Duck was closing in with Kit, who saw Baloo's arm stretching out the window. Kit reached his hands out to catch Baloo's, for what good it might do him given all the aerial somersaults he was caught up in.

"Please get him," muttered Rebecca quietly. Her eyes were closed. "Please, please _please_..."

Finally Baloo was close enough to read Kit's lips as he called out for him. The rolling jungle canopy was coming up fast. He got ready to grab the boy's arm, when a CT-37 cut under the Sea Duck's nose and snatched Kit out of the sky!

Baloo and Rebecca yelped, but they had no time to immediately piece together what happened. Baloo pulled the flight yoke back with all his strength, sinking them into their seats; the Sea Duck dipped into the jungle and sprang up into the sky, clipping a rooster's tail of leaves from the treetops in its path.

Don Karnage wanted to throw an obscene gesture at Baloo, though presently he could do little more than cough and try to un-hunch himself with Kit landing to hard into his lap. He had seen Kit falling and raced Baloo to save him.

"Oowww..." groaned Kit. He winced at the pain in his toe, and it was no small effort between him and Karnage to share the cramped cockpit seat, which left Kit smooshed against the side. "Thanks... that was all a _little _better than hitting the ground."

"It was no barrel of monkeys for me, either," croaked Karnage. "If I left it to Mister What's-his-slow-poking-face to catch you in time, _splat_!"

Kit searched upward, seeing the Iron Vulture wounded but seemingly left at peace. Other pirates in their planes darted around the ship. "Where's the dragon?"

Karange wouldn't have admitted that he did not know-how do you lose something that big, after all-though he looked around with the same question.

"It didn't just disappear," said Kit. But come to think of it, what did he know about presumably immortal beings? There was nothing of the sort ever mentioned in a flight manual. "Uh... _did _it?"

Karnage's plane was just then enveloped in a shadow. Kit glanced at the Iron Vulture again, and how hopeful it would have been to have seen the aura of the sun behind it, but no such luck. The sun was at their back. He didn't want to look, it seemed better judgement not to; ignorance was bliss and what you didn't know couldn't hurt you... and whoever said those things were obviously never swallowed whole by a giant, fire-filled maw. So, he looked. He went back to wishing he had not.

"I hope you've learned some _awesome _tricks for this plane," he said. "It's picked out a favorite!"

"Well _of course _it has," seethed Karnage. "If it was not chasing _me_, I would not know what to do!"

A stream of flame shot for the plane, and blew under its belly; Karnage felt the heat under his boots, and as the fire consumed the air, the plane had nothing to fly through. With its tail smoking, it took a sudden nose-dive toward the broad and glowing red crater of Mount Seren.

"Whoa!" yelled Kit. "Volcano! Volcano!"

"I _see_ it, I _see _it!" Karnage had a strangulating grip with both his hands on the flight stick; the controls felt like they were stuck, if not melted, and the stick was barely budging; he could not pull the plane up. "Who is doing the _flying _around here?"

"But you're _flying _right into it!"

"You would prefer to step _out_?" said Karnage. He grunted as he pulled on the flight stick, so much that he had pulled himself out of his seat. They were falling like a stone into the pit of the volcano. "Boy... _help_!"

Kit hurriedly squeezed between the stick and the dash and pushed the stick from the other side. The plane's tail made a cracking noise as the flaps snapped loose, and then began a hard upward turn just as it crossed inside the volcano, which was deeper than they had imagined; it seemed like an entire sky scraper could fit inside before reaching at last a lake of boiling red lava.

As they approached the other side, pulling near vertical, Karnage was coaxing the plane with muttered threats for it to muster enough power to get them up and over the edge of the crater. Kit knew, though he kept his mouth shut for the sake of hope otherwise, there was a known conflict between steep upward climbs and CT-37's... they did not go well. And, hope was not prevailing. The plane sputtered, and just before it was actually about to rise above the edge, the propeller died.

Karnage's fist angrily slammed into the console, smashing the speedometer in pieces. The plane hung in midair for but brief moment before sliding into the depths of the volcano, and falling back they just missed the dragon's lunging, snapping jaws.

"For cryin' out loud, we almost made it!" said Kit. "Try going in circles and pull up easy! We can do it!"

"Stop back-seat flying," spat Karnage. It was not as if he had much of a choice, anyway. The volcano was well wide enough for him to keep turning... though that idea was quickly disputed when the dragon landed and perched on the caldera's edge, snarling at them.

Coming around, Karnage spied in the shadows a great cave, no doubt where the dragon had emerged from. A stream of lava oozed from its mouth and revealed a glowing path inside itself, and rather than wait for the dragon to rain hell on them, flying full speed through unknown depths of a hot, volcanic cavern hardly seemed so bad.

"That's underground!" cried Kit. "Are you crazy?"

Presently Karnage was not even phased by the word. "Right now, _yes_!"

Kit sighed and sank in the seat. "Just thought I'd ask..."

The lava lit the cavern a golden red, and revealed at their sides a maze of smoke billows and mighty pillars of stalagmites and looming stalactites.

Seconds after crossing into the cave, there was a resounding thud heard behind them, even over the noise of the plane's engine. The dragon was following them, and while it had not the room to fly, it galloped behind, its legs easily clearing the lava stream under the breadth of its body. Its talons shattered chunks out of the ground with each stride.

Karnage was scandalized when he realized the beast was still giving him its undivided attention, just as the smaller white dragon had done. "What? Why _me_? It chases me over and over-I would expect it from the women, but those cankerous creatures-why, why, why!"

Now that Karnage had mentioned it, it had dawned on Kit. He remembered how the dragon had sniffed him out when they first encountered it. "The egg! That goop that was all over you, it's tracking you like a bloodhound!"

Karnage suddenly forgot what was chasing him and threateningly narrowed his eyes at Kit. "Are you telling me I stink?"

"You don't have anything _more important_ to worry about?"

The captain grumbled and jinked the plane to the left... he also couldn't resist putting his sleeve to his nose and taking a whiff, just to check for himself.

"_Now _what are you doing?" asked Kit, seeing as they were now headed for a cluster of stalagmites the size of sequoias.

"Getting _away _from it, what else," replied Karnage.

"Oh, well, what a dumb question!" Kit gripped on to the outter edge of the cockpit. The path ahead did not look like a smooth ride.

Karnage fired a barrage of bullets into the spikes to see if he could cut a narrow path through them just big enough for the plane; they crumbled on the outside but did not fall... so much for that idea. There were rows of them, jutting from the top and bottom of the cavern like a forest of giant fangs, and in a blink the plane was in the midst of it.

On the edge of his seat, Karnage was giving emphasis to the notion that a pilot could fly by the seat of his pants. He rolled and wove the plane left and right in short order, around, under, over and between the stone spikes. Kit dared to keep his eyes open, never sure when the next jink was going to be their last.

There were sharp clashing noises such as stone behind struck and shattered; what obstacles Karnage had to maneuver around the dragon merely plowed through, though after so many it was slowed enough that the plane gained a distance from it.

Kit glanced back, surprised. "It worked!"

"It _did_?" blinked Karnage. "I mean-of course it did!"

"But we're running out of cave!" warned Kit; they suddenly approached a solid rock wall.

"Ooh," fumed Karnage, "they _always _put these things in the most preposterous places!" It was there then that Karnage turned the plane tightly around the cavern, where he found that same stream of lava again, and darted straight away over it.

The dragon was then at their two o'clock position, zeroed in and gaining on them, madly bulldozing through the stone spikes and pillars. By the alarmed expression swept across Karnage's face, this was not a turn of events he was hoping for. Still, he eyed the mouth of the cave daringly and gunned for it full throttle.

"Head down, boy!" he ordered, and he leaned in close to the plane's tiny windshield to cover his face.

"W-we're flying _closer _to it!"

"_Duck_!" yelled Karnage. The dragon lunged and spouted a jet of flame as the plane passed by it, but in doing so it hit its head against a particularly large overhanging stalactite, just enough to keep the fire inches off the plane's tail.

Kit felt the top of his head to make sure it was not on fire. "Yipe!"

"I told you, duck!" smirked Karnage, but more so gloating over the dragon's miss.

Kit gave him a nasty glare. "_What _duck?"

Though the dragon never relented its chase, Kit and Karnage flew out of the cavern far enough from of the beast's flame-throwing range to have a viable chance at climbing out of the volcano. Karnage raised the plane's nose steadily, aiming for the caldera's edge on the far side.

They did not get far before the dragon snaked its head and neck from the cavern. It threatened them with a scream of thunder, and stretched its claw over the cavern's mouth in an attempt to climb the crater's wall, taking pained and resentful care not to fall into the lake of lava below.

"Go, go!" cheered Kit. "It's scared of falling! We're gonna make it!"

They fell under another great shadow, and for once it was not the dragon but the Iron Vulture, with its broken bomb bay doors aligned over their heads, and before they knew it, bombs were falling past the plane.

"What-!" Karnage shouted at his ship as if someone was going to hear him. "No! Wait until we are outside! You bumbling bunch of dumbbells!"

"Where do you _come up_ with these names?" cringed Kit.

"_Poetry_," snapped Karnage. "Now shut up!"

The dragon slowly stepped along the side of the caldera with its front claws digging into it until it was halfway out, enough to wrangle its wings free to stretch, which veiled a part of the crater like an outstretched cloak. One of the bombs managed to strike and explode over its back; it caused the beast to wail, but when the fireball dissipated it had done little else to harm or move it. It did force the beast to retract its wings, lest it suffer larger rends than it already had.

Big fiery explosions erupted from the lava as missed bombs slammed into the bottom of the volcano. Through it all, the lava was placid and unfazed saved for the burning splatter.

"I don't think volcano's oughtta be fed like that," said Kit. They could feel the sound of explosions below tickle the plane. Karnage was silent, intently watching ahead. Sweat flew from his brow in the wind. The engines were slowing in the climb and they were but a hundred yards from crossing out of the caldera. At the rate the plane was slowing, instincts told him that if he did not turn back, they were going to crash before getting high enough to exit; his hand over the flight stick was twitchy as he frantically deliberated what to do.

The dragon had its neck curved upward and watched them with a deathly snarl. It saw that they were about to leave its sight, and crouched its forelimbs to make a mighty jump. It leapt jaws-first at the plane, when a well-aimed (or likely very lucky) bomb struck the beast over its horned crown; in a deafening screech, its massive form twisted in mid-air, and it aimlessly collided into the side of the crater, where one of its wings swept wildly upward and swatted the plane up, over and free from the volcano in a long, errant arc.

The beast slid down the caldera, swiping about erratically to catch onto anything, and it had managed to finally sink its talons deep enough into the caldera to slow itself, when the very tip of its tail swooped down and brushed the molten red pool. It was then that a great rumbling seeped through the lava, and it began to seethe, sputter and rise from the bottom.

Kit and Karnage screamed a collective _'Yiiiiieeee!'_ as their plane was haplessly flung over the slopes of the volcano and across the waters of Lake Titicoocoo. Karnage wrestled with the fight stick to gain some semblance of control, and the stick ended up snapping off from the floor. He and Kit stopped screaming to blink in stunned surprise at the broken shaft in his hands, before Karnage resignedly tossed it over his shoulder.

"Hold on, boy!" he yelled. The plane was fast over the shoreline of the lake and darting for the thick treetops.

"To _what_?"

"To _me_!"

Karnage pulled Kit's head against his chest and hunched over him, and they shut their eyes tight. The plane was rolling wildly and plunged on its side into the jungle, violently plowing a hole through a thicket of leaves, branches and vines; its wings were sheered off, the propeller broke away, and the fuselage was crumpled in like an aluminum can.

Then, at last, it came to a sudden halt.

When the crashing noises and jolts finally came to an end, Kit opened one eye. "You dead?" he asked.

Karnage took a deep breath and straightened his back. "Not yet-whoah!" They fell out of the cockpit head-first to the foot of the trees; what was left of the plane was caught upside down in a tangle of vines.

"What about now," groaned Kit, sprawled on the ground.

"No, no... there is still too much pain to be dead," replied Karnage.

Kit staggered to his feet, staying light on the foot that hurt, which was now nicely swollen around his toes. "You got _that _right."

There was much noise from the distance, explosions and roaring. "We can't stop it," said Kit miserably. "I don't know what's worse, being stuck in the middle of the jungle again, or knowing that dragon's loose to kill everything in sight. If it finds us down here, what are we supposed to do?"

Karnage perked an ear toward the clamor, and noticed that for all of what sounded terrible, it sounded far away. "It did not follow us," he thought aloud... then it struck him that the only thing present to divide the dragon's attention was the Iron Vulture. He suddenly bolted away. "My ship!"

Kit hobbled after him. "Hey! Wait for me!" He met the wolf at a nearby clearing where they could see Mount Seren from across the lake. There were waves breaking on the shore of the usually glassy water, and the ground trembled. The Iron Vulture had just unloaded the last bomb into the volcano, and the dragon's shrieks were agonized and piercing. The volcano erupted into a great blast of smoke, knocking the Iron Vulture from the sky, and the falling airship disappeared behind the mountain ridge. There were no parachutes seen.

Karnage fell to his knees. "No! Not my ship!" he lamented.

"Wow," gasped Kit. The Iron Vulture was never believed to be indestructible, though it most often seemed that way; even the times when it was under such heavy attack that it could not see its crew to their plundering fancies, it always shrugged off enough bullets and shells to carry the crew safely away. Cape Suzette's cannons would ravage its hull one day and see it looming in the horizon upon the next.

Karnage was devastated. He watched the mountains as if inwardly pleading for the ship to somehow rise again. "Gone," he muttered.

"I'm sorry," said Kit. He did know what further condolences to offer, and he felt indifferent to the crew's fate. With the volcano erupting more fiercely by the second, there was not much room for contemplation. He was just glad he was not on the ship.

Black smoke bled vastly into the sky, and huge flames flickered over the top of the volcano. There the dragon rose, its claws gripping the mouth of the crater... and they were burning. Its head came next, roaring, flailing and immolated in a fire that was not its own. Its wings shot forth, only as skeleton and sinew, flinging globs of molten lava into the air.

Then an entire geyser of lava sprang forth as if spewed by all the wrath of hell itself, consuming the dragon in a thousand burning hands slithering over its flesh. It threw its head back, and from its gaping maw there was sudden silence. When it fell, the jetting lava subsided with it... the earth shook as if it were to rip itself apart, the trees rattled and animals fled terrified in a storm of falling leaves. The imposing range of the Atronador Heights quivered, avalanches rolled from the snowy mountain slopes, and many peaks crumbled, collapsing onto themselves in shattered rocky knolls.

From the mountains a wave of dust flooded the jungle, blanketing the treetops as a foul gray mist. As it dissipated, the earthquake eased, and came to a halt altogether as the sun became less dim through all the haze.

Kit and Karnage were clamped onto each others arms, scared to move but their darting eyes, watching for a chasm to crack beneath their feet. Should the earth have parted and one of them have fallen into the abyss, he was going to, by Jove, take the other with him. Wild waves from the lake had them drenched, and before them Mount Seren had sunk and disappeared, with nothing left but a great heap of smoldering rubble.

At length, Kit uttered a thought that they were both wondering: "D-did _we _do that?"

They sat on the shore for a long moment, awestruck at the transformed landscape. Karnage began to admire it like an artist proud of his latest sculpture. He put his forefingers and thumbs together in a square shape and looked through them at the former volcano, imagining the scene as through the lense of a camera. "I want to see the dragon part again!"

Kit rolled his eyes, but then thought about it and shrugged in agreement. "That w_as _the best part."

One of the CT-37's still circling the sky swung low enough near the lake that the pirate inside could be seen signaling them with a wave. Whatever he was telling them, it might as well have been a taunting goodbye, because none of the planes made an attempt to touch down. "So, now what?" asked Kit. "Those knuckleheads are gonna fly off and leave us here."

For that, Karnage had no reply. His expression turned grim. The pirate planes _were _flying away... no ship, no crew. It had become very quite and still; the jungle animals were still too frightened to make a peep, and naught was heard but the rustle of the wind in the trees... and then, from their backs, a bunch of mechanical clicking noises.

By the way Karnage was watching the distance so stoically, Kit wasn't sure if he had even heard anything, so he turned to look, and started. The noises were rifles being racked, and there were a dozen Alpacatan soldiers with their guns pointed at them. "We have... company," he said quietly.

"Mm-hm," replied Karnage, seemingly not bothered. His eyes were narrowed at something above the lake.

"They have guns," said Kit.

"That would be less than something new," replied Karnage.

One of the soldiers called out, "_Pirata _Karnage! Surrender!"

With nowhere to run or hide, Kit regarded Karnage curiously. There was no hint of alarm on his face, but a bold glint growing in his eyes. His thumb caressed the hilt of his cutlass.

"We're in trouble," Kit whispered, in a tone that begged the captain not to do anything rash.

"It is me they want," said Karnage, thinking out loud. "You could just be one more helpless hostage, what would they know."

"No dice," Kit was quick to say. "I won't ditch you like that."

Karnage pointed to what he had been watching over the lake, where the Sea Duck was swinging down in the water toward their location. He raised an eyebrow at Kit, questioning if his answer would still stand.

Kit sighed, staring at the sand between his knees. "I don't want to hurt Baloo... but... I don't want to leave you."

A soldier shouted at them again, "Your hands! Show them!"

With is back kept to the soldiers, Karnage rose to one knee, and winked at Kit as he offered the boy his hand. "Then we do what needs to be done, yes?"

"Does that mean surrendering?" asked Kit.

"Never!" Karnage whisked Kit from the ground and in a heartbeat faced the soldier's with the blade of sword under the boy's chin. "Away with the guns," he warned the soldiers, "or the scenery is going to get _very _messy!"

"Wha'... what are you doing?"

"Act scared!" hissed Karnage.

"_Act_? _I'm_ not bulletproof!"

The soldiers recoiled, though their weapons were still raised. They regarded the whispers shared between the two before them with confusion and suspicion. A familiar face stepped from the foliage and joined the soldiers, Rupo. He had no weapons, but a map rolled in his hand and a hiking backpack slung on his shoulders. Though he was surprised to suddenly meet the two right there, he shook his head incredulously at Karnage's threat. "Are we to believe you have a hostage?"

"Not my most _sensational _catch, perhaps," shrugged Karnage.

"He jests," Rupo said to the soldiers. "He will not hurt the child."

Karnage pulled Kit's head back by the hair and pressed his blade against his neck. "Try me," he growled .

"Ow! _Don't _try him!" piped Kit. He glared at Karnage and added, "He has _no idea _what he's doing!"

"What do you think will come of this?" asked Rupo. "If you cut him, you will be shot! How long do you plan we will all stand here like this?"

"Oh, just long enough," answered Karnage.

Then Rupo spoke quietly to the soldiers, and one by one they lowered their guns. After that, he stepped closer to Karnage. "When Seren began to stir, and the ground trembled with Sargon's groans, I rode to the city, at the behest of my elders, to warn them."

"You _knew _that thing was there?" scowled Karnage, inadvertently jolting Kit's head.

"Watch it," grumbled Kit. He twisted Karnage's pinky, and the wolf stifled a yelp, so perhaps he got the message.

"_I_ did not!" said Rupo. "Nor did the elders, exactly. I spoke of Seren and Sargon as spirits, and that is all our beliefs had known them to be, the old gods. But did I not warn you of an evil you would not understand, an evil _we _did not understand! The elders believed strongly that evil was attempting to break free into the world, and now we know! We saw him chase your dirigible in the sky... we saw Mount Seren collapse upon him. We saw the mountains..."

Rupo paused and swallowed, viewing the forever changed horizon of the mountain ridge he knew so well. "I gave the an earnest warning to the officials, though they only laughed at me as superstitious. This morning as I rode back to my village, I was met by these men, who had been told by a scouting patrol that your ship was hovering near the Rainbow Canyon. I told them of you, and of your business here, and I agreed to guide them to the canyon. And then shortly, we saw the battle ensue in the sky. I fear you found Rhamastan's gates in the canyon, did you not?"

Rupo did not wait for a reply. "It was _you _who lured him. It was your ship over the jungle when he sprung free... it was your ship that he combated. You trespassed Rhamastan and delved where the living no longer belong, and that which may yet live there can never be disturbed. If there are more of Sargon's kind deep in the earth, they must keep there.

"It may be that Seren kept her promise, and having finally defeated Sargon brought the mountains down over the Ancient Caves, that no fool might trespass there again. But we must know, and quickly. Tell me what you know of the gate; if it still stands, we must seal it."

"Seal it?" said Karnage, sneering at him incredulously. "And you are one _estupid gato _if you think these other estupid gatoswould not try to plunder everything inside!"

"I am aware that may be likely," said Rupo, "but my kin does not have the resources to do it ourselves. Our choices are limited."

Sea Duck splashed into the lake and arrived behind Karnage, coming to a hasty halt over the silty shore. Rebecca and Baloo jumped out, landing knee-deep in the water. "Karny, wait! Don't hurt 'im!"

"About time," muttered Karnage. He turned and swiped his sword in Baloo's direction, keeping a firm grip on Kit. "Back, you! All of you! Back, back, back!"

"Look, he ain't done _nothin' _to you," said Baloo... but then he thought about that statement a bit more. "Er, lately... I hope. Just what do ya want, anyway?"

With a nod of his head, Karnage directed Baloo and Rebecca away from the Sea Duck, and slowly back stepped with Kit toward the plane. "If you do not mind, I will be making another dashing getaway, leaving you all to make an aquaintanceship with each other in this lovely, stinking-like-llama-spit jungle!"

Just then, like an invisible general had yelled to his troops 'Ready, aim...,' the soldiers raised their rifles with clear intent to commence firing... a lot.

"Eep," piped Karnage. He pulled Kit to the ground, and the soldiers fired at will over their heads... over the Sea Duck... and they shot again and again. When it was obvious that that he was not their target, Karnage reared his head up, and heard an explosive blast behind him reply to the soldiers gunfire. It was a blast he knew... those cannons...

There was the Iron Vulture, dented, scarred, and smoking, flying low over the lake, engines chugging, bobbing up and down as an injured animal limps. Its front cannons were extended, and a reckless shot parted the water before it in massive splash that rose as high as the ship itself. When the splash fell back to the lake, there was a line of pirates visible on the edge of the prow, firing musket rounds at the soldiers. There they also dropped a rope ladder, which dragged along as they approached the shore.

The soldiers at once ran out of bullets, their rifles merely clicking empty. Another blast from the Iron Vulture's cannons ripped over them aimlessly, shattering trees... the soldiers cried for their lives and scattered into the jungle, Rupo among them. Once the ladder was near enough, Karnage jumped on. The Iron Vulture swayed upward and began an ascent to the open sky when Karnage realized he was the only one doing the climbing.

Kit was staring the Iron Vulture like the mere presence of the airship had him stunned, and that was not far from the truth, surprised as he was to see the selfish knaves rally to save their captain. Baloo was calling his name; he and Rebecca had taken cover behind a giant kapok tree. Kit looked back at them once, and saw in their eyes their fear for him.

"No, look up!" shouted Karnage. "You will get over them!" He slid down several rungs until he was near ground level again, but he had run out of ladder. He reached his arm as far as it would stretch toward the boy. "Come on, boy! Hurry!"

Kit staggered a step away from the ladder. The captain could only read his lips as the boy shrunk back, 'I'm sorry.'

Rifle shots began to blast from afar at the airship again as some of the soldiers hastily reloaded their guns. Lest he take one of those bullets himself, Karnage scaled up the ladder quickly.

Soon Baloo and Rebecca approached Kit's side. "Kit, are you okay?" asked Rebecca.

Kit nodded, watching the last trace of smoke from the Iron Vulture fade behind the trees. A multitude of second guesses stormed his mind, if he had been on that ship as it rocked away from the jungle, what would have become in the days, weeks and even years, seeing himself as Karnage had, free as the wind, defiantly pursuing the wealth and adventure of a whole world under a big sky, and in fact he could see it quite clearly. In the present, though, he had saved himself and his friends heartache; Karnage had his ship and crew, and he would be okay, granted another day to do all the scoundrel things to which a pirate was entitled.

"Aw, come 'ere, you," said Baloo, and he picked Kit up and held him in a gentle embrace. In a heavy and relieved sigh, he finally purged the fearful doubts that the present moment would not come. With his finger he brushed Kit's hair passed the bloodied scab over his brow, and he could only wonder if over any given moment in the past week how close those doubts came to being true. "Dangit, kid, I don't know where to begin."

"I'm sorry, Baloo," said Kit, burying his face into the big bear's shoulder. "None of this should have happened."

"Shh, yer safe now," said Baloo. "But you an' me gotta have a long talk about you up an' takin' off like-" Baloo paused when Kit squeezed his arms around his neck tighter, and he thought he might have heard a sniffle. Softly, he chuckled in Kit's ear, "Heh-hey, it's okay, buddy. We're goin' home."

Rebecca spied between the trees a man there she did not know, a cougar in glasses, curiously watching them all. He nodded as if he was gaining some sort of understanding, and he curtly waved goodbye before disappearing behind the trees. Rebecca waved back, awkward and perplexing as it was, it just seemed like the proper thing to do. She turned to Kit, patted and rubbed his back; he was still and silent, and seemed to have melted in Baloo's arms. "I think he's a bit overwhelmed that it's all finally over," she said.

"Yeah, an' he ain't the only one," said Baloo.

_'Over_,' thought Kit. It seemed comforting that they believed so.

**

* * *

**

The next afternoon, Dr. Debolt, the very scientist who a year prior engineered the sub-electron amplifier for Khan Industries was summoned to Shere Khan's office.

The news from Alpacatan was not spreading fast, as even those who were there to witness the strange events were not certain what had happened. Nothing was likely to make a major newspaper headline or breaking news over the global radio waves, but what did pass through telegraph and telephone was news of a city reeling from a massive earthquake, and some odd rumors, that mountains were said to have shifted before people's very eyes, and sightings of two strange dirigibles locked in battle over the jungle. However, Shere Khan had been relayed a more detailed account through witnesses onboard his zeppelin fleet, those who watched through telescopes and binoculars.

Dr. Debolt, a short, floppy-eared rabbit with big round spectacles and a white coat, stood before Khan's desk with a presentation easel, which had a stack of big charts that he was eager to discuss, the first being an aerial photograph of the Atronador Basin.

"Now, the jungle sits in a giant crater," he said. "It's possible the incenderous quartz was part of a fallen meteor from a prehistoric era, and is entirely unique to that location..."

The scientist prattled on, for he had made hasty but repeated practice of the words he would speak shortly beforehand. Shere Khan had the back of his chair turned toward him, still as frozen ice. Even sitting before a curtainless window in broad daylight, the sun seemed to shrink away before its rays reached Khan's face. Somehow Dr. Debolt could picture Khan's impatient frown, warning him to stop wasting time, though Khan would usually have just cut in and told him to get to the point. Some matter was weighing heavy on his mind. Dr. Debolt wondered if he was even being listened to at all.

He turned the easel to a new page, this one showing a downward sloping curve against a complicated graph, full of penciled-in notes and equations. He noted Khan's odd silence with more than a little anxiety. "Regarding the mineral's energy lifespan..."

"How did we lose the excavation site," Khan suddenly demanded.

Dr. Debolt gulped. Though he was back in familiar territory with Khan's impatience, now it was a matter of speaking the exact right words fast enough before Khan lost his temper. "Well, s-sir, the tests, _my _t-tests, concluded that the incenderous quartz was volatile when exposed to certain conditions or force, such as exposure t-to fire..."

Khan's chair stirred just a little; he was leaning forward as if about to stand up.

His employee spoke faster than before: "Whatever incited the volcano's eruption, it must have been terribly severe. If some of the mountains actually collapsed, that suggests that there was a vast system of caverns underneath that imploded. The best theory is that the surge of lava suddenly flooding parts of these caverns caused the incenderous quartz to ignite, and thus a chain reaction throughout the _entire _system!"

The scientist caught his breath and recoiled behind his easel. At length, Khan leaned back in his chair with an air of calmness, be it genuine or not.

"And what likelihood exists that more samples of the stone can still be found at the site?" asked Khan.

"It... may be astronomical, at best," replied Dr. Debolt. "If it was as densely embedded as Richter reported in yesterday's transmission, it would mean finding an area where it was much more sparse. Of course, if I could manage to speak with Mr. Richter when he returns, the answers he'll provide about-"

Khan's hand rose from the arm of his chair, signaling the scientist to cease speaking. "That will be _all_, thank you."

**

* * *

**

Back at Higher for Hire, the day for Kit Cloudkicker had consisted mostly of a doctor's visit and a round of lectures. He lay on his bed, his head and foot bandaged. It was perhaps splendid timing to be nursing a sprained toe, given that it seemed, per the lectures, he was as grounded as a wrecked airplane.

There were worse spots to be; for now, there were no chirping crickets or croaking frogs, no forked tongues or bear-eating plants, no sudden falls or giant beasts at his heels. Instead there were comic books and a pillow propped against his back.

He had quite a story to tell, and he explained most if it freely, how Karnage helped him, and how he helped Karnage, even to help him escape from capture. Blowing up a gas station, armed robbery, well... some things didn't _need _to be mentioned, and were not. He told of marvelous treasures and beholding fantastic ancient sights, and he affirmed the accusations made by Bagheera and Tyler, stating his reasons flatly and without remorse. In such matters, narrow as the scope was kept, he had spoken more of the past week with Don Karnage than he had ever mentioned of the year he spent under the pirate's wing. For once, though, as he admitted these things, he did not worry about judgement cast on his motives, though he was grateful when no such judgement was cast.

Baloo walked into the room with two heaping bowls of ice cream. "I think I know just the thing to help yer foot feel better," he said with a wink.

Darned if he wasn't right, thought Kit. If it didn't help the swelling, it at least plastered a grin on his face. "Yeah, good thinking! Thought I was supposed to be in trouble, though."

"Yeah, but I missed ya too much," said Baloo. He sat at the side of Kit's bed and handed him one of the bowls, and noticed Kit was still wearing that red scarf around his neck; as they were flying back home he had not bothered to ask where he got it from, though he did think it was a shame that he lost his ball cap. "Yer neck cold, or are ya gonna go rob a bank on one wheel?" Playfully, he pulled the scarf over Kit's nose. "What're they gonna call ya, the hop-along bandit?"

"No," Kit giggled. "I'm just tryin' it out, to see how I like it."

"If it floats yer boat," shrugged Baloo. They clunked their ice cream bowls together in a 'cheers' sort of fashion and dug in with their spoons. "Wildcat's tryin' to straighten out yer board, by the way. You'll be back on it before ya know it."

Their bedroom window suddenly shook when explosions rocked the city's bay. The Cape Suzette cannons were once again unleashed against their most familiar nemesis.

"What, _already_?" asked Baloo. "H'oh boy, that guy just don't know when to quit, does he?"

Kit shook his head, leaning forward to see if he could catch a peak of the Iron Vulture out the window. "I guess it's not too big of a surprise, is it?"

"Heck, part of me would be disappointed if he did," laughed Baloo. "Who else is gonna follow me into one of my pelican dives and end up underwater? But after a week like this, I bet you'd be happy as pie never to see that old pirate ship again."

The thunderous shots slowed and at last came to a still. Kit gazed out the window, at the burning sunset peering as just a golden strip between the cliffs. Even as the Iron Vulture drifted away unseen to those in the city, it had brought a message to every doorstep, though none heard it as it was truly meant save for one, for it was for him that it was intended, and his ears heard amidst the cannon blasts a familiar taunting laughter, echoes of a spirit unyielding and unconquerable, vowing to all of Cape Suzette, if not the world, that there would always be the pirates, forever, nothing would keep them down, as long as a pirate could still dream, and as long as anyone could still dream of being a pirate.

Kit fluffed his pillow, reclined way back, and helped himself to a big spoonful of ice cream. He smiled, he couldn't help it. "I think we'll be seeing plenty of it."

_~ fin._


End file.
